Stages as Honey Becomes Ready for Harvest

The bees in this first picture are building comb and filling it with honey at the same time. We are in the middle of a strong tulip poplar flow in Atlanta so they are working as fast as they can. The honey looks light and nectar-like.

Here the honey is much darker. The bees have been fanning it with their wings and working the liquid out of the honey, making it thicker and almost ready to cap. Honey that is mostly tulip poplar is very dark as you can see in this picture.
This honey is being capped. You can see at the top of the picture fully capped honey. As you look at the bottom of the picture you can see cells in various stages of being capped. This type of capping is called dry capping. The bees also do a wet capping that looks more transparent. Both are considered capped honey.