Central Florida Honeybees: September 2011

You can't beat summer's heat but alas Florida's saw palmetto honey has arrived.

saw palmetto

Saw palmetto is a small palm, scattered heavily throughout the south, that produces fruit once a year. The fruit is the size of an olive pit or a giant coffee bean. Saw Palmetto honey is a prized for it's extract containing 85-98% fatty acids and sterols which is used in a herbal supplement to treat prostrate enlargement. It's honey, though, is seldom tasted outside the borders of Florida. It is one of the honey greats just the way it is; never mixed with other honey or sugar.

bee's hanging on the porch

July and August are hard months to work outside in Florida, and it seems the bees do too. After about my third sting I try to knock off and go inside to cool off a little. I go back out about four or five o'clock to help with the animals and to see how bearded the hives are. Plants we have blooming now include black mangrove, cabbage palm, saw palmetto, and coral vine. So far it has been a good year. The Italian bees seem to be adapting great and are producing strong hives. I was able to make numerous splits, and the small hive beetles so far have not been a problem.

Other good news is that Florida passed the Cottage Food Law allowing us to sell some honey. In the past, we just ask for donations. Certain standards do apply for the cottage honey, including the labeling and where it can be sold, but I do believe this is a great step for the hobby beekeepers in Florida.

coral vine

One of the biggest question I hear on blogs and other publications is whether anyone rents extractors. Well, I have seen some advertised although not in Florida. I would recommend checking with your local bee club or to just do crush and strain if you only have one or two hives. Used extractors are few and far between. I know the feeling that times are truly hard and the experience of buying an extractor can be very difficult for the hobby beekeeper. I started out with crush and strain but it was a lot of heavy, messy work. The next year I was blessed to be able to borrow a four-frame extractor from someone I have helped. The work was so easy, I was convinced I would have to invest in one especially since I planned to increase the number of hives I had.

This year I was very blessed when I came upon mine and my thanks goes out to William Mashburn at Bee Happy Apairies for giving me such a terrific deal on equipment he no longer intended to use. It needed some minor repairs, but is very large (12 frames) radial extractor and and decaping stand, so I can do all my frames very quickly including clean-up. But there are some very good deals on extractor sets from the major bee suppliers, too. If you intend to have more than one or two hives, you will have to invest in extracting supplies. And even if you do have only a couple hives, an extractor makes the job so much easier and quicker, and allows the bees to get up and going sooner because they don't have to completely rebuild the comb, a small investment will be worth it.