Sixty hives. Four fields. One kind of honey.

We keep about sixty hives across four yards within ten miles of Eagle. That's a small operation. It's also all the bees two people can look after properly while holding other jobs, and we'd rather do sixty well than three hundred badly.

Because the yards are close together and we don't truck the hives anywhere, the honey tastes like this specific corner of the Kettle Moraine — basswood and clover early, goldenrod and aster late. The fall honey is darker and stronger and some people prefer it, which took us a while to believe.

We extract in the barn, strain it through a coarse mesh, and put it in jars. That's the whole process. It isn't heated past what it is in the hive, which is why it will crystallize in your cupboard eventually. That's honey behaving correctly.

We sell at two farmers markets, four shops, and here. Some years we run out in January. If you want the fall honey, don't wait.