Hambden Honey

08/22/2026

We just finished extracting our spring honey! We put frames of honey from the hives into an extractor which uses the speed of the spin to whip honey out from the frames without damaging the comb. Then it flows through the 400 micron strainer to remove any wax or particles into a food grade 5 gallon bucket to sell as is or put in our bottling tank for 1lb bottles.

Our spring harvest has yielded quite a bit of honey. We think the honey from our apiary in Hambden has a really sweet flavor with a hint of smokiness. The bees from our apiary in Madison seem to have found the nearby fruit farms giving the honey a hint of berry. They are both delicious 😋

We sell our honey $15 for a 1lb jar. You can message us for local pick up or use our shopify for a small fee. Hambdenhoney.com

We also have bulk pricing available if you are looking to stock your local store or farm stand. Or whatever big plans you may have!

08/10/2026

We have a new apiary!! Pride Landscaping manages this property and setup the area so we could move hives in.

Bee math, along with your support, helps us to continue expanding.

You may wonder: why do we need new apiaries rather than just add more hives to our existing apiaries?

Increased foraging competition from an overcrowded apiary can result in a less than average honey crop.

We wouldn't want that!

Have you ever wanted an apiary for the benefit of the bees but without the work? We are always looking for a spot for our next apiary! We do need access by vehicle, a 10 hive minimum, and a flat plot of land. If you're interested in hosting a long term apiary, please message us!

06/26/2026

06/16/2026

We always knew it was possible, but we never thought it would happen to us.

Bears are a natural predator to apiaries. Though contrary to belief, they aren't after the honey; the honey is just a bonus. Bears like to eat the brood and larvae from the hives, often eating frames completely clean.

We have learned lots about bears in the last few weeks, especially about how they are recolonizing the northeast Ohio area. The only way to protect our apiaries from bears is with a bear grade electric fence. Don't worry, this doesn't hurt the bear, just trains it to avoid the area.

We consider ourselves fortunate because we only lost two colonies, as there are beekeepers who lose entire apiaries in one night to a bear attack.

05/30/2026

Wow, we really hope swarm season is over!

While swarms are natural, we try our best to avoid them for a few reasons.

-The more mature forager bees are leaving with the original queen which can lead to less honey production.

-Swarms can end up in bad places: homes, residential structures, or on a temporary surface where they end up killed.

-As the original hive tries to raise a new queen, the new queen isn't guaranteed to mate successfully or survive which results in the loss of the original hive without additional intervention.

Any time we see a swarm, we try to catch it. Enjoy some of the other swarms we found and saved this year!

05/27/2026

Swarms, while intimidating, are surprisingly docile. You can even pick them up with your hands as long as you are gentle! This swarm found it's way to a fruit tree where we had to carefully identify and remove the queen, then gather up as many bees as we could with our hands and relocate to the nuc box. Once we got enough bees with their queen in their new home, they fan the queen's pheromone to encourage the rest of the swarm to join them.

05/25/2026

SWARMS! Have you ever seen one?? Or heard one?? They're pretty cool to experience.

When a strong hive comes out of winter, it's natural instinct is to reproduce. When a colony has plenty of bees and reserves such as honey, pollen and bee bread the hive knows that it's in a good position to raise a new queen and divide itself. When the new queens hatch, the original queen along with thousands of bees prepare for a new home while the new queens fight to the death for the next reigning queen.

On the next warm, sunny day these bees flee the hive in a SWARM to a temporary resting spot while they decide where their next permanent home will be.

If we're lucky, we can intervene and capture the swarm, which can look a little something like this...

05/16/2026

We've been working hard to prepare nucs! One step in the process is raising queens to ensure a strong and productive new hive.

Ever wonder what that looks like?!

Here is Ben with a purposely queenless, very strong, hive letting bees do what they do best.. raise a quality queen.

This "grafting frame" goes into the hive after manually placing young larva into the cell cups and the bees immediately start raising these larva as potential new queens.

After the bees cap the larva inside the queen cell we remove the queen cells and place in an incubator until the hatch, then we place in a strong nuc. Or we can place the cells directly into a nuc where they will hatch when they're ready!

We find that our overwintered colonies produce the best quality queens and nucs.

In case you were wondering, YES, we have had great overwintering success and are still making nucs available for purchase!

05/10/2026