September is National Honey Month

September is National Honey Month. (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images)

September is National Honey Month.

One place to learn more about honey is at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers’ Market, where Urbana beekeeper Maggie Wachter of Senior Honey brings traditional honeys and honey infusions for customers to try each week.

Her products include wildflower, basswood, tulip poplar, and clover honeys. Honey infusions are flavored honeys, made when Wachter takes clover honey and steeps different petals or different organic spices in the honey. That gives it different flavors like chamomile lavender, habanero, and chocolate.

“This morning I sold a bottle of chocolate honey to a lady who told me she didn’t like honey.  But she’d never tried chocolate honey, and that changed her mind,” Wachter said.

Clover honey is the most common honey, but part of Wachter’s mission is to help people develop their palates for honey.

“It’s a little like wine. In fact, it’s a lot like wine, because the flavor of a particular honey like wildflower or basswood or almost any honey can differ from year to year,” Wachter said.

That depends on things like moisture and how much nectar was available.  Wachter said people can also pair a particular honey with a particular food.

Wachter enjoys the personal relationship with nature allowed by beekeeping. Bees have a complicated and highly social way of life, which is evident by watching their behavior in the hive. However, Wachter is concerned about the disappearance of bees in Illinois and across the country.

“Last winter was a brutal winter in Illinois.  We lost, we estimate around 30 percent of our bees.  That’s a lot of bees to lose,” Wachter said.

Beekeepers are paying more attention to the winters and the preparation of their bees for overwintering to assure their survival. Wachter said that is the focus right now, which includes ensuring the bees have enough food, that the hives are out of the wind and that they are well ventilated.

To hear the entire interview with Maggie Wachter, click here:

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Carrie Muehling can be reached at carrie@wjbc.com.