Vermont Honey Story
As you drive the gravel of Vermont's country roads and enjoy the scenic beauty of the many lush pastures which dot our countryside, keep in mind that many of these fields that feed Vermont's dairy herds also provide a significant portion of the "bee pasture" so vital to the state's honey bee industry. Keep in mind too, that Vermont bees work within village and city limits to provide honey and pollination to Vermont's "urban" beekeepers.
Vermont's honey is produced from wildflowers and forage feeds for cattle where use of chemicals is rare. This floral sources from which this honey comes is more various than wine grapes. The honey is a pure product produced by small beekeepers taking pride in their product.
Often overlooked by the public is the honey bee's greatest contribution to agriculture, namely their pollination service. The body of the bee is covered with very small branched hairs, that readily accumulate pollen grains as the bee flies from flower to flower gathering nectar. With each new flower visited, some pollen is inadvertently dropped off, and some is picked up. The bees then carry the nectar and pollen back to the hives to feed their young. Pollen is the bees' source of protein as nectar supplies their carbohydrates.
This process of of cross-
Should the bees continue to be plagued by Varroa mites and other pests, those very crops will be come endangered. Think about it.
Vermont Honey By Season
European honeybees were brought to America in the 1600’s to provide honey and to pollinate a newly introduced animal forage called clover. Since then the honeybee has become an essential link in our food production chain, pollinating more than 80 commercial crops.
Vermont has long been known for its innovative beekeepers and sweet pastures. The 1868 U.S. agriculture survey showed Vermont as being, as it is now, the leading honey producing state in New England with 12,000 to 15,000 hives producing from 400,000 to 1,000,000 pounds of honey annually. Because of the types of plants that grow in Vermont's sweet soils, our honey is characteristically mild flavored and light colored. But beyond flavor and color, Vermont honey is a tradition worthy of great pride and praise.
Many people, honey lovers among them, are unclear as to what honey is and how it is made. Simply stated, honey is a concentrated solution of simple sugars, mostly fructose and glucose manufactured by honeybees from the nectar of flowers. The foraging honeybee draws nectar up from the host flower's nectar glands and stores it temporarily in her honey crop. During the return flight to the hive, she adds enzymes to the nectar that begin to break down the nectar's sucrose into simpler sugars. Customarily, once bees in a hive have been alerted to a new honey source through several different and distinct dances, the foraging bees will "work" that source until it's exhausted. Then they will move on to another flower.
Once home, the field bee gives these contents to the hive bees, who store them in
the cells of the colony's wax combs. At this point the un-
Beekeeper's Calendar by Steve Parise
