Sunshine Honey

Sunshine Honey We're beekeepers in Chautauqua County, New York. We sell honey and beeswax.

To paraphrase Forrest…returning to New York is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get. This y...
04/07/2026

To paraphrase Forrest…returning to New York is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get. This year it was 6 hives decimated by a bear. Most of our hives spent the winter on trailers behind our barn, but we do have a separate bee yard along the tree line maybe 100 yards from the house. There were 9 hives in that yard; 3 on a small trailer and 6 on concrete blocks. The hives on the trailer were still in tact, although 2 had died (unrelated to the bear). Of the 6 on concrete blocks, 2 were dead in November, but Sam expected the other 4 to make it through the winter. As you can see from the pictures, the bear had plenty of time to drag the boxes and frames into the woods. At least the bear didn’t get into the barn this year 🙄.

10/15/2025

Watching honey pour out of the extractor is mesmerizing 😀

Fall extraction 2025 wrapped up last Friday. We finished with 1870 pounds. Oddly, we did not get a single drop of dark goldenrod. We had about 4 buckets of honey that was light but had the “bite” of goldenrod but nothing was dark. If anyone figures out what’s happening to goldenrod in our area, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

Total honey production for the year was 2470 pounds. Our average is 2800 pounds annually so after a horrible spring harvest, we were grateful to make up some of the deficit in the fall.

A peek inside the world of beekeeping: this was a brand new frame Sam put in a hive this fall. You can see that the plas...
10/07/2025

A peek inside the world of beekeeping: this was a brand new frame Sam put in a hive this fall. You can see that the plastic foundation has a honeycomb pattern stamped into it. Then the bees will draw it out further to make room for honey. Did you know that bees build the comb at a 15 degree angle so the nectar doesn’t dribble out? And when we put this frame back in a hive, it will go in position 4 because the bees will draw it out better if it’s close to the middle.

We got another 22 boxes spun out today, and we’re up to 17.5 buckets of honey which is roughly 875 pounds.

Fall extraction 2025 has started. Sam pulled boxes from 2 bee yards on Saturday and 2 more on Sunday. We started with 96...
10/07/2025

Fall extraction 2025 has started. Sam pulled boxes from 2 bee yards on Saturday and 2 more on Sunday. We started with 96 honey supers. We processed 22 shallows yesterday which produced about 400 pounds of honey. If a shallow is full end to end, it should hold about 30 pounds so our average so far of 18 pounds/shallow is decent but not fabulous. The shallows go on first so in theory they should be the most full. We’ll finish processing shallows today and start on the medium boxes.

We’re ready to go at our final market of the season. Come see us at the corner of Third and Main in Jamestown from 9-1 t...
10/04/2025

We’re ready to go at our final market of the season. Come see us at the corner of Third and Main in Jamestown from 9-1 today, and stock up for the season.

The bees are continuing to put honey away. Sam checked all the trailers today and added another 16 honey supers. This is...
09/24/2025

The bees are continuing to put honey away. Sam checked all the trailers today and added another 16 honey supers. This is really late to be adding boxes, but things have been running late all year. We now have a total of 95 supers out.

If every box was completely full, we would have about 3750 pounds of honey in this harvest. That’s obviously not going to happen, but Sam is now hoping for at least 2000 pounds.

Sam checked on all of our hives today, and the news was much better than we expected. We now have 79 honey supers on hiv...
09/18/2025

Sam checked on all of our hives today, and the news was much better than we expected. We now have 79 honey supers on hives--50 mediums and 29 shallows. The boxes are filling up much better than they were a week ago, and we are more optimistic for a decent fall harvest. (This picture is from 2022, but it's typical of our trailers right now.)

This picture shows one of Sam's strategies for improving honey production. It's called under-supering. The shallow boxes that are on top would have been put on first, so if Sam just stacked new boxes on top of the old ones, the shallows would be in the middle--just on top of the deeps where the bees live. Instead, he reverses the order when he adds new boxes and puts the new box just above the deeps. This way the bees do not have to crawl all the way to the top of the hive to store honey in honeycomb cells. It saves them time and helps them work more efficiently. It's more work for Sam, but if it ultimately helps us get more honey, it is worth it.

We’re set up and ready to go at the corner of 3rd and Main in Jamestown. We will not be bottling any more spring honey s...
09/13/2025

We’re set up and ready to go at the corner of 3rd and Main in Jamestown. We will not be bottling any more spring honey so what’s here is all we have left for this season. We do have more fall honey.

Reminder: we will be at Dunkirk on Wednesday and back at Jamestown on October 4.

Come stock up for winter!

We are making some changes to our remaining market schedule. We will be at Jamestown tomorrow and on October 4, and we w...
09/12/2025

We are making some changes to our remaining market schedule. We will be at Jamestown tomorrow and on October 4, and we will be at Dunkirk on Wednesday. We also sell out of our home. Message us to schedule a time to come pick something up.

It’s a beautiful morning for a farmers market! Come see us at the corner of Third and Main in Jamestown. We’re here till...
08/30/2025

It’s a beautiful morning for a farmers market! Come see us at the corner of Third and Main in Jamestown. We’re here till 1 pm.

Yellow jackets are out in force this morning but Sam has his fly swatter 😀. He’s killed 10 so far. His record for one market is 31. 🤣🤣🤣

We’re set up at Sherman Days today. In Edmund Park on the south side of the playground. We’ll be here till 4pm.
08/02/2025

We’re set up at Sherman Days today. In Edmund Park on the south side of the playground. We’ll be here till 4pm.

Address

9251 Mina Cemetery Road
Sherman, NY
14781

Telephone

(716) 269-9798

Website

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