Color Combo Honey

Note: (Google has been having some problems with uploading images. These images are small but at least they uploaded. If you click on the image, you can see the photo much bigger).

Last year most of the supers I harvested had honey of a consistent color. An early super would have light colored honey on all 10 frames. A super filled in July would have very dark rich-tasting honey, possibly from sumac and catalpa.

I took off some frames from the hives over the weekend and discovered that the frames from Melissa had two colors of honey in the same frame - both light and dark. In the picture below, I've outlined the honey on the outside of the frame that is very dark and the honey in the center is quite light.

In this picture if you look at the uncrushed comb, you can see the very dark honey on the edges and at the top of the picture and the top of the uncrushed comb, you can see the very light honey

Even when I crushed the comb, you can still see the pool of light honey up against the pool of dark honey. I'm not sure if this is atypical and will let you know when I hear from the forum question I will post.


Post Script: One of the posters on Beesource suggested that this represents a switch in nectar source. The picture of the full comb is on a frame sitting upside down. The light honey was stored first (at the top and center of the frame). We are now moving into the season where I get dark, rich, delicious (to me) honey. So the honey more recently loaded into this frame was probably from the dark honey sources (sumac, catalpa).