VegHeadz Garden Honey

Apalachee Beekeepers Assn. bee yard adjacent to
VegHeadz demo vegetable garden
at Leon County UF/IFAS Extension

Hive with one brood box
and two supers

Adjacent to the VegHeadz garden is a fenced enclosure containing a number of beehives, which varies from season to season, currently seven hives.  At the recent Extension Open House the Apalachee Beekeepers Association (ABA), which owns and maintains the hives, was on hand to sell their honey. 

We were disappointed to learn that the honey on sale was not specifically from the hives adjacent to our garden.  The bees there pollinate our vegetables and fruit and gather nectar and pollen from our pollinator plants, cover crops, and fruit and vegetable blooms, along with pollen and nectar from plants within a two or three mile radius of the hives.  Instead the honey on sale was from hives maintained by the ABA in nearby Jefferson County. The honey marketed by ABA is usually from hives maintained at Leon, Wakulla, and Jefferson County Extension Offices, mixed together to provide a uniform product.  

This week we happened to be on hand when beekeeper Bob Livingston showed up to service the beehives housed next to our garden. This trip he was treating them for varroa mites, a routine and necessary preventive task. Seizing the opportunity, we asked Mr. Livingston if we could obtain honey from “our” hives. On a previous occasion several years ago, we had purchased from the ABA a unique and delicious very dark honey, which we felt had come from the buckwheat we grow as a cover crop in our garden.

A frame full of honey in the comb,  from
the hives adjacent to the VegHeadz garden.
Each cell is capped with wax.

When he had finished treating the bees, Mr. Livingston very kindly obliged us with a full, heavy frame of honey from the hives. The full frame weighed 4 lbs, 7 oz.  We divided the comb into 18 portions of just over 3 oz. each to share among anyone who showed up at our Wednesday morning workday.  The empty frame weighed just short of a pound, 15.9 oz.   Therefore we harvested about 3 1/2 lbs. of honey and comb from one frame.

Honey with comb
included

There are usually at least two layers of boxes in a bee hive—at least one larger bottom box known as the brood box or brood chamber.  There the queen lays her eggs and the worker bees tend her and her brood, feeding them with nectar and pollen or “bee bread”  that is stored there as the eggs develop into larva, pupa, and finally adult bees.  

Often there are also one or more smaller upper boxes known as “supers” where the bees store most of their honey.  Both types of boxes contain suspended wood or plastic frames like the one pictured here in which are inserted foundation sheets of plastic or wax. The bees build their comb on both sides of the foundation.   A panel called a queen excluder is inserted between the two types of boxes so the queen can’t lay eggs in the cells on the honey supers. 

Also, you will notice in the first picture above that there are more brood boxes than there are supers. The spring flowering season and honey flow have slowed and supers may have been removed to harvest the honey.  There may be an additional honey flow during fall blooming season depending on weather, and perhaps more supers will be added so the bees have room to store the honey they will be making to provide winter food.

Each super usually contains 10 frames, and can produce from 30 to 40 pounds of honey, depending on the season, weather, nectar available, etc. It may even be possible to harvest a super more than once a year, but it is advisable to leave 20 to 30 pounds of honey in each hive for the bees to over winter.   Mr. Livingston advised that “our” hives are their most productive ones, no doubt thanks to the many pollinator plants and cover crops blooming in our garden most of the year. 

Processed honey is spun to remove the honey from the comb by centrifugal force, filtered to remove bits of wax and pollen, and heated to 160° (pasteurized) to kill yeasts and enzymes which might degrade the honey during storage.  Sometimes the moisture content needs to be reduced if it isn’t low enough, for instance if the honey is harvested before the bees have reduced it to the desired hydration. The bees fan their wings over the open cells to increase air flow in the hive until the nectar in the cells is reduced to honey with 18% hydration.  They then cap the cells with more wax. This prevents fermentation of the honey and ensures its stability during storage.

There are several variations of unprocessed honey. Raw honey is unpasteurized and unfiltered, retaining natural elements like pollen, enzymes, and vitamins. Filtered or processed honey undergoes heating and filtration, resulting in a clearer, more stable product but with fewer nutrients and a less robust flavor. Unprocessed honey is a broader term that can include raw honey but also encompasses honey that has been minimally processed, like straining to remove large debris.

Comb honey goes one step further, as it is always raw honey.  Producing comb honey with the comb intact requires special techniques and equipment.  The advantage of honeycomb is not just the raw honey in the comb, but the actual comb itself. The wax cells are not only edible, they are more nutritious than the honey, containing a natural antibiotic, and varying amounts of propolis and pollen, even some residual royal jelly. Comb honey can be eaten either by chewing and swallowing the honey and the wax, or chewing the wax like gum to extract all the honey, and then spitting out the wax. 

Comb honey is a great addition to a cheese or charcuterie board.  Spread it on toast, or add chunks to a kale, spinach or arugula salad.  Fun Fact:  After we harvested the honey and comb from the frame, we placed the frame back inside the fenced enclosure with the beehives where the bees will clean up the frame and scavenge any remaining honey.

More about Bob Livingston, a well-known area beekeeper.   More about bees, beekeeping and honey from the UF/IFAS Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab.