Honey

Beeswax

Pollination

Custom Filling

BEHIND THE HIVES AT RULISON HONEY FARMS

Rulison Honey Farms is a family owned and operated farm located in the rural town of Florida in the Mohawk Valley of upstate New York. With over 125 years of beekeeping experience, the Rulisons work year-round managing approximately 2000 colonies of bees, pollinating orchards in the spring, extracting honey during the summer and early autumn, rendering beeswax, filling and bottling honey by hand, making deliveries, and hand-pouring pure beeswax candles.

MEET THE BEEKEEPERS

WHAT OUR WORKERS ARE UP TO...

in the Spring

During the months of March, April and May, our beekeepers are busy going through each hive, checking the health, size, and remaining food stores of the colonies. After the long winters of the northeast, some hives dwindle in numbers and others die out completely, while others stay strong and are filling their frames with brood, ready to hatch out new bees. Some of these frames of bees and their brood are taken out by the beekeepers to start new nucleus hives, in order to replace losses from over the winter. 

​As fruit trees are on the verge of blossoming, orchards are ready to have bees moved in for pollination. The hives are loaded at dusk and delivered to various local orchards the next morning at dawn, where they remain for the next week for the bees to do their work. 

in the Summer & Early Fall

The month of June brings a short lull for the beekeepers as the bees are busy collecting nectar from the various spring flower sources and turning it into honey. Each hive is checked to make sure there is sufficient space for honey storage and honey supers (hive bodies with empty frames) are added accordingly.  Starting in early July and continuing through mid August, the beekeepers begin the task of pulling the surplus honey from each hive, transporting it back to the honey house, and then extracting it from the frames. The process repeats from early September through mid October as the late summer/fall honey crop is collected from the hives, leaving enough honey for the bees to use as their food source through the winter months.

In the Late Fall & Winter

​After the busy summer months, the beekeepers continue the chore of winterizing the hives, combining weak hives as necessary, and relocating from summer locations to more sheltered wintering yards.  The hives must be monitored and treated for any disease or parasites and ensured that all are stocked with sufficient honey as food stores.

​The months of December through February bring a slower pace for both the beekeepers and the bees, who use their energy to keep the hive warm and alive through the cold winter. The beekeepers check the hives periodically during this time to monitor the health and strength, and, as necessary, provide a supplemental food source in the form of fondant boards(cane sugar). The quieter winter months are filled with building/repairing hive bodies and frames, maintaining machinery, rendering beeswax, pouring candles, making spread style honey, and of course, the year-round processes of straining, bottling, labeling, and delivering the honey.