Local beekeeper discusses honey production process
It takes over 550 bees to produce enough honey for one 8 oz jar.
There’s a lot that goes into the honey production process that rarely the average customer sees, but it’s not just the bees that put the work in, the beekeepers do as well.
Owner of Lake Martin Honey David Whitman came to a recent Lake Martin Dadeville Area Kiwanis meeting to discuss what all goes into just one jar of honey.
Of course, it starts with the hive.
An average hive has one queen, 200 to 500 drones, which are the bees that mate with the queen, and 20,000 to 60,000 worker bees. The queen bee produces roughly 2,000 eggs a day which is needed since the average lifespan for a worker bee is 42 days and they are the bees who are going out to gather the nectar to make honey.
Meanwhile, swarms can occur when a hive splits off to establish a new queen and a new home. Whitman said this is bad news for a beekeeper since you are losing honey production while the hive focuses on establishing the new queen. Beekeepers also want to avoid swarms because swarms can migrate in trees, inside houses or playground equipment.
“If you ever see a swarm, reach out to a beekeeper because we’ll come get them, it’s free bees for us,” Whitman said. “If you can find the queen on the outside, which with a mass of bees is hard to do, but I have caught them on the outside. If I can get her in a box, then we are all set because (the other bees) will go in the box and go where she is.”
In these cases, the queen is placed in a queen clip, which is a small box that worker bees can go in, but the queen can’t come out of, all the rest of the bees occupy the hive box. After a couple days the bees recognize the box as their new home and the queen bee is released.
Once the hive is settled and making honey, the beekeeper can begin pulling honey from the hives. The process starts with gathering the supers, which are boxes with frames filed inside, where the bees store the honey.
Ideally, beekeepers would want frames mostly capped, meaning there is wax over the cells within the frame. This ensures the moisture content is good for honey excretion. Whitman said he generally wants the honey to be around 18% moisture content.
After ensuring the correct moisture content, Whitman removes the wax from the frame and places the frames in the honey extractor. The extractor swings the frames around and through centrifugal force and gravity, honey comes out of the valve at the bottom of the extractor.
The honey goes through a strainer before it’s bottled and ready for market. This year, Whitman has bottled roughly 1,500 pounds of honey.
His honey can be found at Lake Martin Grocery, 34 Market and Whitman frequents both Alexander City Farmers Market and Pennington Park’s Farmers Marketplace. Whitman is also a member of the Tallapoosa River Beekeepers Association.
