August 2025 - Streamlining the Struggle Bus

 Life is all about perspective -- and to illustrate that, I'm going to suggest this picture I took of one of our ladies out in the field.  Your first inclination might be that the picture CLEARLY is oriented the wrong way, that I forgot to rotate it before posting.  Look again.... rotate your phone (if on mobile) so the bee is "right side up."  Betcha see pretty quick how wrong that looks now!  First impressions, eh?

So with that new perspective in mind, let's delve into this topsy turvy Spring and Summer we've been having and what it means for the bees, the honey, and (gulp) price adjustments.

Okay-- firstly, I'm pretty sure all our jars are made in the U.S., so we don't anticipate changes to those costs immediately/directly due to tariffs, etc.  However, it's been a hard year so far in other respects and the rules of supply and demand have us "de-complicating" our seasonal prices.

Bottom line:  Prices are being adjusted to normalize the two seasons while still maintaining discounts for higher quantity purchases and not raising costs for the majority of our customers. The new prices are posted on our price page (and inserted below).  The primary goal was to make this a lot easier for all of us to understand and to make the math easier. 

Typically we have been harvesting about 2 to 3 times as much honey in the Spring as in the Autumn and, to try and move jars equitably between the two seasons, we priced the Spring lower to encourage a bit more demand. We also added "one of each" pricing a couple years ago and people really seemed to like balancing both varieties at a little discount.

For the last few years we have been having sporadic harvests. One year we had no Autumn harvest for sale and now for the second year in a row, we have a Spring harvest that is about 1/2 to a 1/3 of what we would normally expect and we're often selling out of both seasons at inopportune times for our various events.

Trying to dynamically adjust prices only makes the price sheets incoherent and adds to the confusion (yours AND ours), so instead, we're going with this new streamlined pricing (this is a screenshot of the price list we will have at events):

Without posting all my math equations, suffice it to say that these prices mostly split the difference between the two seasons and still maintain the "value ramp" of the price per pound going down the more you purchase at once. The highest new prices are all equal to or BELOW what they were previously, especially if you're "an Autumn Honey person."  

Alrighty, so enough Economics 101 -- let's talk Spring Honey harvest.  As I mentioned above, it was not a great year as the bees seem to struggle finding nectar due to the frequent rainstorms we've had since... well, last year?!  The rule of thumb is that after a rain shower washes nectar out of the flowers it can take three days of dry weather for nectar to seep/leech back out to where the bees can suck it out. That means if it rains ever 2-3 days, you don't get much nectar in the hive to be turned into honey.  

Our own availability to harvest this year (due to travel, weather, etc.) resulted in us pulling the honey boxes off a couple weeks later than normal-- arguably just as the weather was improving!  The result is the bees have found more typically Autumn nectar early and "infused" that into the usual Spring nectar and/or mixed it up on the same frames. We noted some frames had clearly different honey color variations cell by cell--  right next to each other. Very strange.  

Nonetheless, the improving weather meant the ladies were diligent and thorough in the dehydration of the nectar and crafted honey with nearly IDEAL moisture content-- making it thick and richly colored. It is very nearly as dark as our last Autumn Honey (see pic above) but retains a very fresh Spring taste. Technically, it is probably a slight blend, but we don't have labels for that so we're sticking with "Spring."

There is not a lot of it, but it is GOOD and looks fantastically warm. 

We managed to get about 95 pounds-- but compare that to about 300 pounds in 2021, 230 in 2022, or 250 in 2023. Last year we harvested only about 70 pounds in the spring and that was after a failed Autumn harvest, so we're definitely wondering if this is a trend towards single-harvest years or what adjustments we need to make (if any) regarding our vacation weeks.  

Time will tell how the rest of this year goes. The boxes are back on the hives and we're hoping for a strong finish with another later-than-normal Autumn harvest (also due to travel and schedule conflicts).

Thanks for reading to the bottom (almost there!) 

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And there's a dedicated "BeeBurgh" playlist on YouTube here, with a look at our "operation":https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX9waTQBfaIvQn-oAVmlRBSsssiYCQ7Js&si=u4W_Q-DyFsyI73lv

We will continue to send out email updates a couple times a year as news warrants.  Remember that you can always email us to work out alternate delivery/pickup along the McKnight Road / Route 19 areas in the North Hills/Wexford or porch pickup at our house (near Shenot Farm in Wexford).  If we're home you don't even need to get out of your car-- we'll meet you out there if we know you're coming!

Consider joining our email list-- we will not spam you, we promise! What we will do is send out information regarding events we are scheduled to sell at, along with reminders when each season's harvest is ready for sale. For anyone looking for the limited availability stuff (like quart jars or comb honey) or who want to be first in  line, this is the list to be on-- email us to get on that list if you aren't already. 

Thank you everyone!