In mid-July, lavender, cornflowers, red clover, and hogweed bloom in a rich display of color. Honey bees are busy at work, collecting nectar and pollen. Beekeepers harvest aromatic summer blossom honey from the bees' efforts.
Aromatic summer blossom honey
Mid-July is a time of peak activity in the beehive. The little workers swarm in and out to store nectar and pollen from the summer bloom. Alongside plants such as red clover, hogweed, lavender, and cornflowers, numerous herbs like goutweed and thyme are in bloom.
The harvest of summer blossom honey generally begins in mid-July. The exact timing depends on current weather conditions. Summer blossom honey has a strong floral taste and is more intense than blossom honey from the spring. Its color ranges from dark yellow to light brown.
Sweet and spicy – Lavender and thyme honey
The harvest time for monofloral summer honey like lavender or thyme depends on the specific flowering time of the plants. Beekeepers must monitor the location of their beehives and harvest the honey in a timely manner so that the bees collect as little other floral nectar as possible.
Lavender blossom honey does not have the typical lavender taste; instead, it is sweet, lovely, and aromatic. Its light color shifts from yellow to orange. Southern France is known for its typical lavender fields and lavender honey.
Thyme honey often comes from Greece, as it offers the perfect climate for this herb. Intensely aromatic, it features a distinct fruity note along with a hint of malt. Its color varies from dark yellow to orange.
Tart-sweet chestnut honey
Chestnut honey is a particularly rare summer honey. In Germany, there are only a few regions with sweet chestnut trees. These include areas with warmer climates such as the Taunus, the Bergstraße, or the Rheingau. The trees bloom from the beginning of June to mid-July. During this time, the bees collect not only the nectar from the flowers but also so-called honeydew. Aphids feed on the plant sap of the tree leaves and excrete it as a sweet liquid.
Chestnut honey has a robust, spicy flavor with tart and slightly bitter notes. Due to its high fructose content, it has a liquid consistency and crystallizes very slowly. This makes it versatile for easy use in the kitchen. Its light- to dark-brown color often has a reddish shimmer.
High-quality summer blossom honey contains little water
To be harvested, honey must ripen sufficiently. When passing the nectar within the hive, the bees ferment it using enzymes in their saliva. The more often the workers redistribute the nectar, the more enzymes it contains. These influence the ripening process of the honey.
The thickness of the honeycombs determines the drying time of the honey. The thinner the wall, the faster the water can evaporate from the nectar. During intense blooming, beekeepers must ensure that the bees do not cap the quickly collected nectar too soon. If they do, it remains moist and cannot ripen sufficiently. Bee colonies kept in the sun produce more liquid honey than those kept in the shade.
According to official guidelines, honey may only be harvested when it has a water content of no more than 20 percent. Otherwise, the high moisture content can cause the honey to ferment and spoil. The German Beekeepers' Association recommends a water content of 18 percent to improve quality, a standard that regional beekeepers in Germany generally follow.
Honey is ripe when it has a viscous consistency
Before harvesting, the beekeeper carefully presses the honeycombs. If the honey flows out in a viscous, not watery, stream, it is ripe. Bees are traditionally driven out of the hive by smoking or by using a so-called "bee escape." This acts as a barrier to prevent bees from entering the honey chamber. Some beekeepers remove the wooden frames with the combs, known as supers, and brush them off with a hand brush.
After removing the supers, the beekeeper opens the honeycomb lids with a special fork. The honey is spun out of the combs in a centrifuge at hive temperature, without any further heating. This means that honey produced by a regional beekeeper is always cold-extracted. Only the industry heats honey produced in mass quantities for easier processing, as this keeps it liquid longer and prevents crystallization.
Regional beekeepers do not filter their honey
Regional beekeepers subsequently strain the honey and always avoid filtering it. Filtering removes crystallization nuclei, valuable pollen, and protein from the natural product. Depending on the variety, the honey is stirred to give it a creamy consistency. Instead of using heat to liquefy the honey as the industry does, the honey crystals are mechanically broken down, allowing its quality characteristics to be preserved.
The so-called invertase value can also be used to determine quality. It measures the activity of the enzymes in the honey and, according to the German Beekeepers' Association, should be at 60 percent, or 85 percent for particularly high quality. High-quality honey can, however, also be significantly above these values.
Learn more about honey and the various types of honey in our honey guide
