What Does Rain Have to Do With Honey?

What Does Rain Have to Do With Honey? 

We live in Singapore, where rain is almost part of everyday life.

It can be sunny in the morning, pour in the afternoon and be sunny again by dinner. Most of the time, we don't give it much thought.

When we first started learning about honey, we thought rain was simply good for the bees too.

More rain meant more water for the plants. More plants meant more flowers. More flowers meant more food for the bees. More food meant more honey.

It seemed like common sense.

Then we started spending time with our beekeepers in our beehives. 

We noticed how closely they watched the weather.

Not just whether it was going to rain, but when it was going to rain.

Was the rain coming before the flowers opened, or while they were already blooming? 

Would the bees be able to fly? 

Would the flowers still have nectar afterwards? 

Would the rain help the next flowering, or arrive at a time when the bees couldn't make use of it?

That's when we realised something we had never really thought about before.

For us, rain is weather. For the bees, it can change the entire honey season.

Rain can be good. And it can be difficult.

Bees need water, and plants certainly need it. Rain is part of the natural cycle that supports the flowers that bees depend on.

But bees also need to fly.

When rain is heavy, bees are less able to forage. They stay inside the hive rather than flying out to collect nectar and pollen. And even when the rain stops, what happens next depends on the flowers and the conditions around them.

Sometimes rain helps the plants prepare for flowering.

Sometimes it comes at a time when the bees cannot make use of the flowers that are available.

And sometimes a long period of wet weather can simply mean fewer hours for the bees to forage.

We began to realise that there isn't really such a thing as "good weather" for honey.

There is only the right combination of conditions at the right time.

Our beekeepers watch the weather differently

When we travelled to our hives at Western Australia and Northern Thailand, we started noticing how much of a beekeeper's attention goes beyond the hive itself.

They watch the sky.

They watch the trees.

They watch the flowers.

They watch what the bees are doing.

In Western Australia, the flowering of native trees such as Jarrah and Red Bell is closely tied to the seasons and the conditions leading up to them. Our beekeepers know that what happens before flowering can influence what happens during the honey season.

In Northern Thailand, we saw something very different.

During the Longan flowering season, there can be an incredible abundance of flowers across the orchards. We drove for hours from the city to reach some of the apiaries, and once we arrived, it was easy to understand why the bees were there.

But even with so many flowers around, timing still matters.

The bees need to be there when the flowers are ready.

And the flowers need the right conditions to develop.

The whole thing is connected.

We started noticing the weather differently

This is one of the funny things about spending so much time around bees.

Before, when it rained, we mostly thought about whether we needed an umbrella.

Now, when we are travelling and the rain starts, we sometimes find ourselves thinking about something completely different.

Are the bees still flying?

What will the flowers look like afterwards?

Will the flowering continue?

Has the season changed?

We never used to think about rain in this way.

But once you start seeing honey as part of a living landscape, it becomes difficult to look at the weather as simply background.

The rain is part of the story.

And then there is a changing climate

The more we learn, the more we realise that this relationship is becoming harder to predict.

Climate change doesn't simply mean that everywhere becomes hotter or every year becomes drier. Changes in temperature, rainfall and the timing of seasons can affect plants, flowering periods and the insects that depend on them.

Extreme weathers are becoming more common. 

For bees, timing matters enormously.

If a plant flowers earlier than usual, the bees need to be ready.

If flowering is delayed, the colony has to wait.

If a flowering period becomes shorter, there may be less time for the bees to forage.

And if heavy rain arrives during an important flowering period, the bees may not be able to take advantage of what is available.

The beekeeper can respond, but cannot control any of it.

They can watch the season. They can move the hives. They can make decisions. But they cannot make the flowers bloom.

Nature doesn't follow our calendar

This is perhaps one of the things we find most humbling.

We like dates.

We like schedules.

We like knowing when something will start and when it will end.

Nature doesn't always work that way.

A honey season isn't simply a date on a calendar. It begins to take shape through a series of small changes — the weather, the flowering, the bees becoming more active and the landscape offering them enough food to forage.

Our beekeepers have learnt to read these signs over many years.

But even the most experienced beekeeper cannot know exactly what the season will bring.

Sometimes the flowers are abundant.

Sometimes they aren't.

Sometimes the rain comes at exactly the right time.

Sometimes it doesn't.

And the honey reflects all of it.

This is why place matters

The more time we spend with our beekeepers, the more we understand that honey cannot really be separated from the place it comes from.

A Jarrah honey carries the story of a Western Australian landscape.

A Longan honey carries the story of Northern Thailand.

And behind both are the flowers, the weather, the bees, the season and the people who were paying attention.

We used to think of honey as something the bees made.

Now we see it as something much bigger.

The bees make the honey, but the landscape helps shape it.

We can't tell the rain when to come.

We can't tell the flowers when to bloom.

And we certainly can't ask the bees to wait for better weather.

What we can do is keep visiting the places where our honey comes from, listen to our beekeepers and pay closer attention to the changes happening around the hives.

And perhaps that is one of the things we love most about honey.

It reminds us that nature is always part of the recipe.