The wife has been bugging me to pull some more honey before the end of the season, so yesterday we pulled 6 frames. That gave us around 45 pounds for the year.

The best tasting honey I ever had was Mountain Huckleberry ( Vaccinium membranaceum) honey. Pretty rare and expensive.
What other outstanding flavours are out there in different parts of the Country? I'm admittedly somewhat of a honey snob.

Thistle honey is said to be very light some times almost clear, with a great taste. Orange blossom honey I had once was great had a hint of Orange taste. I think just straight wild flower honey is good and all my spring honey from each hive has a different taste. You can taste the difference in flowers that they have been on.

BTW, I mentioned Huckleberry honey above, if you try to buy any on line be aware that almost ALL of it is just clover honey with huckleberry flavouring or juice added.
It is hard to find true huckleberry pollenating bee honey, but if you find some grab it.

Around here there's a variety but not sure they are necessarily "outstanding":

Blueberry, not a fan of flavor. similar to most of the early fruit tree honey, blue berry always seems harsh and strong to me. color is all over the board from water white to light amber depending on how fast it comes in.

Locust, to me super sweet but very little flavor and almost always light colored between white and water white. fairly popular honey and makes for nice cut comb. but blooms at a weird time that leads it to often be overpowered by both blueberries and autumn olive.

Tulip poplar, one of my favorites. fairly rich taste without some of the overbearing strong flavors that i associate with early orchard honey or something like buckwheat. most normally color is low end light amber color with hints of red which tends to make it less popular with consumers than higher grading white honey.

Basswood, historically the primary crop in the state. distinctive flavor with fairly strong mint type tones. color is all over the board but on average comes in as extra light amber

Star Thistle (knapweed). The invasive that displaces basswood from the top producer spot depending on the year. Almost always white in color. Pleasant distinctive flavor but to me has a sharp acidic after bite. Super popular. The honey ingredient for a number of "bigger" micro breweries when a citrus flavor is not wanted.

Milkweed, another favorite of mine. Tends to be come in as extra light amber but has the nicest cinnamon tones.

There are all kinds of others and you can taste the variety as it comes in from those but they often times tend to be more a minor part of our crop and can get overpowered but the predominant floral sources.

funny year here, we lost both the locust and basswood crop. there were basically no locust flowers this year and very little basswood either. one of those years when the traditional minor floral sources became the majority so a blended flavor is slightly different this year. tasted a fair amount of raspberry and alfalfa at times.

I have taken honey off twice this year ( western and north central Pa. ) in early July and mid August. I was away for a week at the beach at OBX, just got home Saturday night. My plan was to take off all my supers today and tomorrow, but the goldenrod flow is still on. Most years it’s wrapped up by now, but I’m guessing the summer drought and late August rains must have thrown off the normal timing. Bees are working frantically, and the smell of drying goldenrod is overwhelming.

Kept bees for 48 years, this is by far the best season I’ve ever had....12 producing hives ( plus 5 swarms I caught and hived ) , 1300 pounds so far, with probably another 400 pounds to yet to remove. I’ve never seen hives this strong. April and early May were wet and cold, but after that, nothing but dry sunny days.

Most of mine comes from Buttonbush - Cephalanthus occidentalis...

Never had that but I was very impressed with Saw Palmetto honey.

Anyone know of a central source where I can buy exotic, or distinct types of honeys?

makes a dark, fairly nice honey here but its generally a minor source in comparison.

i use to sell here long long time ago. not exotic but example of some midwestern varietals

https://laneyhoney.com/about-us/

Waggler--there's likely someone on here from the southeast that will have some sourwood. that's a classic

What percentage do you need to leave for them over winter?

As Jackie Gleason often said, "How sweet it is."

Sourwood is always a crapshoot, you haul your bees to the mountains and hope. Sourwood is funny. One side of the mountain may be a bust while the other side is a boom. We also have sumac blooming at the same time so it's bee's choice what you might get. If you're early to the mountains there's also basswood to contend with.
Here in Georgia we also got tupelo aka ogeechee buttery flavor, palmetto, gallberry, cotton, tallow but the state is trying to eradicate that.

Never have seen buttonbush around these parts. Dandelion, maple, clover, knotweed and goldenrod are our big nectar sources.

Ranger, that’s a pretty frame there. Ever make any cut comb frames? I always have folks looking for it here.

Big Brownie, That's an amazing harvest !

I wish we had warm and dry sunny summers but we don't . A hot day for us is 70 degrease an more days like 55 degrease is normal for us. Some parts of Alaska like Fairbanks do really good and get a huge harvest its warmer summers there. With all the daylight we have here the bees can work long into the night even. The one main ingredient to making honey is hot dry weather.

I order honey online from all over the US and other countries just to try. I like Acacia honey from Hungry, and Blackberry from Washington is real good too. I have some goldenrod ordered from ebay waiting to try. But my own honey is the best I ever tasted and many who have sampled it have said the same. Its mainly fireweed with Cow parsnip and a few other wild flowers mixed in. It taste similar to orange blossom from Florida but also has a hint of butterscotch taste.

I wish I could get a decent harvest someday, just snatched a few frames as a I could, These hives were just nucs this spring so fingers crossed for next year.

I have a few buttonbushes in my low area on my farm. They smell fantastic. I cut some branches for Diane earlier this year. They made the kitchen smell really good. Buttonbushes are a very pretty plant too. I am going to try to clone some this late Fall. I suspect they make very flavorful honey. The plants here get covered by bees and wasps.

Keith

Keith, when my bees are on it the whole bee yard smells of buttonbush; great aroma...My area is very unique to have this amount, but it does make for some wonderful honey...