About White Oak Apiaries (and our honey) White Oak Apiary is a migratory, commercial beekeeping farm. The number of colonies we keep varies from year to year, but averages about 800. In addition to producing two varieties of raw, unprocessed honey, we provide pollination services to wild blueberry growers in mid-coast Maine. The bees are put onto the blueberry fields around the first of May, when the blossoms first appear, and usually remain there for about a month. Then the colonies are moved to the fields of neighbors and small local farmers, where they spend the rest of the summer making our delicious Maine Wildflower honey. At the end of the summer, we extract the honey, while the bees downsize their colonies and prepare for winter. In the fall, we move our whole operation to Southeast Georgia, in the piney woods along the Satilla river, just northeast of Okefenokee swamp, about 40 miles inland from the Atlantic coast. Spring starts in the middle of January there, with the Maple tree bloom. The bees collect a large amount of pollen and nectar from the Maples to start rearing brood for the year. Hive population increases rapidly in the warming climate, and in late February a swamp shrub called Ty-Ty blooms in astonishing profusion. With a fine perfumy aroma and flowery flavor, Ty-Ty nectar and pollen flow for almost a month, providing the fuel for an accelerating population explosion. We use this growth to make our spring increase, dividing colonies and adding new queens. By the first of May, it is time to load the bees onto trucks for the trip north, but we leave some colonies to benefit from the next wave of bloom, to make a crop of our Extra Fancy Georgia Honey, from the famous Gallberry and Tupelo flowers.