Bee Season Update: The Barn Is Down, the Honey Is Still on the Hives

Back in March I wrote that the barn shed was gone and that 2026 would look different. It does.

The damaged barn has been demolished. We are starting over, and we are still waiting on a new building. Until that shop exists, there is no honey house. There is no extraction location. The extractor itself was destroyed in the fire.

The bees

The colonies made it through. This has not been a year for expanding and pulling. It has been a year for keeping bees alive and getting them through while the ground under the operation got cleared.

I am grateful they are still here. I am not going to dress that up as a bumper season.

Spring honey is still on the hives

Spring honey is still sitting on the hives. I have not pulled it.

That is not a management choice I would have made in a normal year. I do not have a place to extract, and I do not have an extractor. Until those two things exist again, this year’s honey stays with the bees.

I do still have a limited supply of honey from last year. When it runs out, it runs out.

What is next

The next real step is a building. A new extractor and a clean place to work come after that. Queens remain local pickup only here in Jacksonville, as always. I am not shipping queens.

This is still the same project I talked about in March. Nobody got hurt. The bees are here. The barn is not. We rebuild from there.

Thanks for hanging in with Chuck’s Honeybees while we do it.

Chuck