The favorable weather in 2019 continued into the fall, with enough precipitation to enable the flowers to bloom and enough sunshine and warmth to encourage the bees to forage. By mid-September the bees had produced another full batch of honey for harvest.
Thanks to a different mix of nectar sources, fall honey is darker than spring and summer honey. The Whites Hill bees produced honey with a beautiful ruby-red hue. Like the summer harvest, the bees keep the exact recipe a closely held secret, but it is dominated by Japanese knotweed (“American bamboo”), an invasive but pervasive species in the area. Other likely components include goldenrod and asters. The 2019 Ruby honey has a complex, exotic flavor, including strawberry, cherry, and raisins.
