For the bee guys here….did you fellas bottle your honey as a single source, or do you blend honey from multiple sources? I used to separate out my spring, summer and fall honeys….there’s definately is a difference in color, texture and taste. The fall honey is primarily goldenrod here, dark and quick to crystallize. The earlier honey is much lighter, and slower to sugar up. But I’ve found that folks seem happy with a blend of multi source honey….easier for me too. That way I only need to market one product.

The only honey I’d isolate out is that made from buckwheat. I have moved bees to buckwheat, and they can make a huge amount of honey in a short time. I have folks who want it…but it is almost black, with a really strong flavor. Almost a liquorish flavor.

To short a flow here to try to separate. But if I go an hour south I can get tallow or cotton. A couple hours north sourwood or sumac, maybe basswood. Four hours south tupelo, gallberry, palmetto. All of those are worth separating and command a premium.

The biggest thing you can do here to upscale is chunk honey. Extracted with cut comb in the jar is traditional and in high demand.

Chris (Bigblackbirds) sent me two different honeys last year, I forgot what those bees were grazing on but it was the best honey that ever past over my lips. Me and the boy about foundered on them.
I remember one tasted like cotton candy.

I’ll make about 20 shallow frames of comb honey every season. Usually in September, as you gotta have a really good flow to get bees to draw out comb on a piece of surplus wax. Folks want to buy a whole 3 lb frame of comb.

BigBrownie---

We've done this multiple ways over the years. Currently, I send a % of the crop to be custom extracted/purchased by another operation. As such, I dont even see the honey---full supers leave, empty ones come back and when its over a check shows up. However, I do run the other portion of the honey. That is not really sorted out by color or varietal source. Most all pumps into bulk settling/blending tank and then gets pulled out for a customer that bottles and distributes it to end stores. Normally Michigan honey runs XLA if you are familiar with color grading. There's plenty of color variation over the season but if you run all late spring and summer honey together that's about where we end up in the long run. However, when I'm running I will try to pick out some (only 3-400#) by color and variety for myself---generally to be given away as yard rent and to the pile of landowners where I hunt and trap.

MI honey comes from a range of sources over the course of the season with a mix of color and flavor. There's tons of minor sources but the potential biggies as far as crop goes are below sorta by season order mid May-mid September.

Blueberry--from pollination. Overall tends to be darker often running the line between LA and XLA but on some of the big nectar years I've seen it come in fast enough to grade closer to white. I find it rather strong tasting and not very pleasant. Often times there is a decent flow in berries but at the same time its pretty common to try and avoid the crop as it is a pain in the rear to deal with honey while needing to be able to move hives.

Black Locust--as the berries are finishing up it ramps up but only for about a week. In the right conditions it can fill supers---this was not one of those years lol---but overall it can be pretty fickle as it does poorly with rain/wind. Its a very light colored (white) honey with a nice taste.

Autumn Olive---tends to overlap timing with the end of berries and sometimes with locust. As with most bushes/trees it has possibility to produce intense flow. Somewhat light colored but has a unique perfumy flavor that sorta resembles the smell of the bushes. Color grade decent---flavor maybe not so pleasant

Tulip Tree/Tulip Poplar--probably one of my favorite early honeys. Opposite of locust as the color tends to push into the LA grade with a distinct reddish tint. Deep robust but pleasant flavor. These days I'll sort it out when possible for myself

Button Bush--another favorite of mine and it often gets mixed with Tulip due to location. Dark honey without the red tint that reminds you of a watered down buckwheat color but with almost a spicy note.

Basswood--historically the primary honey crop for the state. Overall basswood tends to come in at XLA color mark. It has a distinct minty flavor. Across the majority of the state this is the make or break flow for the season.

Clovers/Trefoil, etc---generally light colored with sweetness but not lots of flavor profile. Trefoil does smell like a wet dog when its running

Alfalfa---in my area its a significant crop but you have to be in the ag zone to really count on it. And with modern intense dairy farming its much less reliable than 25-30 years ago. Usually XLA to white with a candy taste profile.

Star Thistle/Knapweed----it took over the #1 slot from basswood over the years but being invasive the state has been on a mission to eradicate it for decades now. Its still the crop that most migratory operations chase. It grows in the sandy soil along the lake and in the north land where nothing much else can thrive. It grades as white with a unique taste. I find it leaves you with acidic after bite.

As fall approaches in mid August we go into a short dearth and then the fall flowers hit right at the first of September. Its primarily goldenrod with alot of asters and other things mixed in. Tends to all be fairly dark usually with a yellow tint and all taste similar to me. Similar to berries, I've seen it come in as white but thats not the norm, By mid September the season is 98% over.

Some other summer sources in certain locations include milkweed (great cinnamon flavor) and purple loosestrife with a unique flourescent type yellow/green color. The state has been in war with loosestrife for years so its less of a current source than couple decades past. If you live in one of the states big rat marsh areas youve watched the loosestrife battle over the years. You can be assured that loosestrife ended up there from one of many former trappers that switched to honey income sometime post '87

Back in the day I sorted out honey by color primarily given 1) color is how its sold in bulk and 2) we tried to bottle 60% of the crop so to avoid selling so much bulk. Honey to be bottled went into blending tank and was pulled out into barrels for storage and final mixing when needed. When bottling, usually about 25% was dark XLA to LA. But most folks wanted the light color honey and tried to bottle around very high end XLA to white. I typically think that blended honey is appealing to more folks that one floral source. Typical here to have a bottling blend that is part clovers, alfalfa, thistle and basswood. When mixed together it tends to mellow out. Varietal honeys are very distinct but also can be harsh in some ways. I did pull out some specifically for varietal---usually in pails for an end user. For us that was primarily thistle for micro brewers and basswood for bottling by others. Also ran a decent amount of cut comb---cut straight into 5 gallon pails and then covered in liquid honey---essentially a bulk version of bottled chunk honey. That was pre 9-11 and most of it got exported into Saudi Arabi.

Very informative post BBB. I like hearing about nectar flows from other beekeepers.

No kidding big black birds I copied that honey post to save as a reference.

So did I, great post BBB!