BuckfastLinda · Flanders, BE · Honey · Oct 30, 2026
Blending honeys for a consistent winter product — is that cheating, or just what every packer does?
Flanders, six years, fourteen colonies. I sell through two farm shops that want the same honey all year, and my production is anything but the same all year: an early spring honey that sets hard and pale, a summer blossom that's mid-amber, and a late honey that's darker and stronger.
So far I've sold them as three separate products, which the shops find awkward — customers who liked the spring jar come back in November and get something different, and some of them complain. The obvious solution is to blend to a house style, fill the year's production into one consistent product, and keep only a couple of single-origin honeys as specials.
My hesitation is partly emotional and partly about honesty. Part of me feels that blending is what industrial packers do and that the point of buying from a beekeeper is that you get what the bees made that month.
Where do people stand? And for those who blend: do you blend in the bucket as you go, or hold everything and blend deliberately in winter? Anything to know about labelling a blend of your own honeys from different months?
#blending#labelling#selling#bottling
▲ 3 votes
💬 3 replies
MieleMarco · Oct 30, 2026
It isn't cheating. Blending your own honeys to a house style is a craft decision and most of the serious beekeepers I know do it with at least part of their crop. What matters is the label: it must be accurate about what's in the jar, and you can't call a blend by a single floral source. Blend deliberately in winter from buckets you've tasted, not accidentally as you fill.
IstriaBee · Oct 31, 2026
Istria. Second the deliberate blending. I do small trial blends in jars — 70/30, 50/50 — leave them a week and taste them side by side before committing 100 kg. It takes one evening and it's the difference between a house honey and a muddle. Keep records of the ratio so you can repeat it next year.
InesMel · Oct 31, 2026
Alentejo. I'd keep a couple of single-origin jars at a premium alongside the house blend, which is what BuckfastLinda is already suggesting. Customers who care pay more for the named one, and everyone else gets consistency. Both stories are true and you don't have to choose.
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