Blackberries, a Crowd Favorite
Every beekeeper looks forward to the months of May and June, when the “nectar flow” is at its peak and the bees are making lots of honey. It’s crazy— they can fill an entire honey super with 40 pounds of honey in a week, during this time! A lot of flowers come into full bloom in mid-May. Blackberries are among the favorites of honey bees and other pollinators.
I propagated several blackberry plants, of the thornless variety, from my parents’ house in the mid-1990’s and brought them to Kansas City. Thirty-some years later, my blackberry patch is still my pride and joy. The patch is made up of about 20 plants and is located less than 50 feet from my beehives. The bees don’t waste the opportunity to feast on this premium nectar source. The little pinkish white flowers are covered with pollinators of all kinds, gorging themselves and ensuring that my plants will bear an abundance of big beautiful berries a couple months later.
While this specific cultivar (I believe it’s called Triple Crown) is not native to Kansas, wild blackberries are and they can be found in prairie settings and near the edges of wooded areas. In fact, on the farm where I’ve set up eight additional hives this year, wild blackberries abound, growing naturally by the hundreds.
Blackberries are such an important part of my own garden and gardening experience that I originally named my honey brand, “Blackberry Farms Honey”. An appropriate name for a product that gets at least part of its flavor from this wonderful fruit. “Blackberry Farms” became “Prairie Gold Honey” as I wanted my honey brand to tell connect us back to the land we’re on and the beautiful geography of our region. Even so, blackberries continue to be a crowd favorite among my bees and will always influence the unique and delicious flavor of our honey.
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Available in 8 oz. and 16 oz jars.