There are two periods during the season that we take off the supers (the top boxes where the bees store the honey) and extract the honey - the first extraction period typically occurs in mid to late July through mid-August, and yields the lighter honey (clover) from spring and early summer foraging. The second extraction period falls in late September and early October, yielding the darker wildflower honey.
Is your honey organic?
Our products are not certified organic, as it would require that all nectar sources for the bees be organically grown and pesticide free. This would be an extremely difficult, if not impossible, feat for most areas in the US - a bee can travel up to two miles to find food, and consequently, even if a beekeeper could maintain that radius according to organic standards, some variables are outside his control, such as the rain or wind, which have the potential to carry pollutants. Since our bees are not transported around the country, we have a general knowledge of the areas in which they are foraging. Our forty plus beeyards, which are located in the Mohawk and Hudson Valleys, provide a rich variety of plants for the bees’ nectar sources.
IS YOUR honey RAW?
There is no clearly defined standard, nor US federal definition, for what constitutes “raw” honey; however, it can be described as honey which has not been heated or filtered, but rather bottled in the state as it was taken from the hive. All of our honey is minimally processed in order to maintain as much of the natural pollen content as possible, however we do produce a specialty line of raw honey bottled in glass jars. This involves even lighter heating than our regular “non-raw” honey to retain local pollen while allowing for a smooth bottling process. Our honey is also strained to remove foreign matter such as bits of wax and bees and other non-honey particulates, but never filtered.
How Is your honey produced?
The bees make it, and our beekeepers collect, extract, and bottle it all here in upstate New York, the same way it has been through each of our family’s generations. The making of honey starts with nectar, the sugary liquid found deep in the heart of a flower; once the bees carry the nectar back to the hive, it is transformed into honey by a complex process involving partial digestion by the enzymes in the bees’ stomachs, through regurgitation and transfer between bees, and a final depositing into the honeycomb where the excess moisture is evaporated by the fanning of the bees’ wings. It is then sealed with wax and can be stored indefinitely, until needed as a food source for the bees, or extracted by our beekeepers.
What flowers are best for making honey?
Not all flowers are good nectar sources for the honey bee: some flowers do not produce much nectar, and the bees’ ability to procure the nectar from the heart of the flower is dependent on the shape of the flower and the length of a bee’s tongue (proboscis).
Some of the best nectar sources for our bees in the Mohawk and Hudson Valleys include:
Late Spring
American Basswood
Black Locust
Sumac
Summer:
Milkweed
Clover
Late Summer/Early Fall:
Goldenrod
Aster
Purple knapweed
Japanese knotweed
How do you remove your honey from the comb?
After our beekeepers retrieve the honey-loaded frames from a hive, the honey is removed, or extracted, from the waxy honeycomb, by scraping off the protective top layer of wax (cappings) and spinning the frames at high speed in a machine called an extractor. We then remove any extraneous materials, like wax, dirt, or bee parts, by gently straining the honey, and then it’s ready to be bottled and enjoyed.
What do the bees do during the cold, winter months?
Honey bees do not hibernate during the winter, though they do enter a “dormant” stage, keeping inside their hives when temperatures are below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. During the cold months, the bees cluster closely together in the hive with the queen at the center, vibrating their wings and rotating positions to create heat, maintaining a cozy 92 degrees Fahrenheit. Here at Rulison Honey Farms, we keep our bees here in the Mohawk and Hudson Valley year round. We prepare them for the cold, winter months by moving our hives to wintering locations that are protected from the wind, insulating the colonies with extra padding materials and wraps, and making sure to leave them with enough food to make it through until spring. We check them throughout the winter to ensure they are healthy and well-fed.
What do honey bees eat?
Honey bees eat honey, of course! After collecting and transforming the floral nectar into honey, it is packed into the cells of the honeycomb where it is stored and used to feed the hive, including larvae, worker bees, drones, and the queen. Honey is the bees’ carbohydrate source, but they also need proteins and fats in order to survive, which they obtain from flower pollen. After a bee visits a flower and packs pollen into its pollen baskets (found on its back legs), it is packed into the honeycomb and mixed with nectar or honey to create beebread and becomes another food source for the bees.
Do you feed your honeybees?
Over the winter and into the spring, the hives often are in need of supplemental feedings to tide them over until the flowers begin to blossom and they can forage for themselves. This supplemental food is usually some form of cane or corn sugar. Because it is fed to the bees before the honey supers (where the bees store the honey that we harvest) are put on to the hives, no cane or corn sugar makes its way into the honey, meaning the honey we harvest, bottle and sell remains pure honey.
How much honey does each bee make?
A single worker honey bee only makes 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its short lifetime of around a month or less.
