Dr. Schi­er keeps its bees in spe­cial wood­en box­es. Each hous­es a colony. The bee queen is the moth­er of her approx­i­mate­ly 30,000 daugh­ters and 1,000 sons (drones). Ten hon­ey­combs hang with­in the box­es, built by the bees them­selves from wax they excrete from spe­cial glands. The combs serve as stor­age rooms for pollen and honey and as incu­ba­tors for the young bees.

Nec­tar is aro­mat­ic sug­ar water, rich in min­er­als, pro­duced by plants to attract insects. Plants need the insects to trans­port pollen direct­ly to anoth­er plant of the same species for fertilization.
Pollen is a life-prop­a­gat­ing pro­tein. The trans­port of pollen by bees is more pre­cise than ran­dom pollen trans­port by wind (as in the case of grass). With­out bees, there would be few­er and small­er fruits, or no fruit at all.
Bees col­lect both nec­tar and pollen. They need both as nutri­ents for their young. An area of rough­ly 1 mile (2 km) in diam­e­ter is searched for the col­lec­tion of these two constituents.

A return­ing col­lect­ing bee pass­es the nec­tar on to sev­er­al fur­ther bees. Each bee with­in the chain adds enzymes and oth­er nat­ur­al sub­stances. They grad­u­al­ly mod­i­fy the com­po­si­tion of the sug­ars and con­fer on honey its spe­cif­ic “antibac­te­r­i­al” and “antiox­ida­tive” prop­er­ties. The end-prod­uct is honey. It is stored in the combs and sealed with a wax cov­er. Inter­est­ing­ly, the life­time pro­duc­tion of one sin­gle bee is approx­i­mate­ly one tea­spoon of honey.

Dr.Schier’s bees need for their own sur­vival approx­i­mate­ly 60 kilo­grams (133 pounds) of honey, 30 kg (66 pounds) of pollen and 20 liters (5 gal­lons) of water per year. It is the sur­plus of this honey which is tak­en by the bee­keep­er. This amounts to approx­i­mate­ly 15 kg (33 pounds) per hive.

Honey is col­lect­ed in sum­mer. For extrac­tion, the hon­ey­combs are removed and slow­ly rotat­ed in a cen­trifuge. The honey is trans­ferred into spe­cial jars.

The honey’s col­or is relat­ed to the blos­soms vis­it­ed by the bees. In Switzer­land for instance, a limpid, cham­paign-col­ored honey means that bees took nec­tar from robinia; white orig­i­nates from canola or lin­den; bright yel­low means fruit trees; yolk yel­low is sun­flower; gold­en yel­low, dan­de­lion; auburn, spruce; green­ish brown, fir; green, sweet woodruff; and flu­o­res­cent, corn­flower. There are as many col­ors as there are flow­ers. Most hon­eys are mixtures.

Each honey has its own unique fla­vor. Lin­den honey tastes like minth; dan­de­lion honey like lovage or herbs; robinia reminds of per­fume, and for­est honey has hints of malt.

Usu­al­ly, bees col­lect nec­tar from blos­soms, that is, from plants. In con­trast, For­est honey (or: Honey-dew honey) comes from “hon­ey­dew”, a liq­uid excret­ed by small insects. These insects feed on the sap of conifers and some decid­u­ous trees such as oaks to extract its pro­tein. The sug­ar in the sap they do not like, so they excrete it as “hon­ey­dew”, and this is what the bees make honey from. After park­ing under cer­tain trees in sum­mer, the car sur­face might be dot­ted with tiny sug­ary splat­ters: this is honey dew. Fir honey orig­i­nates from fir trees exclu­sive­ly and Pine honey from pines. For­est honey is dark­er with a high­er min­er­al con­tent and a stronger taste. It is ascribed to pos­sess par­tic­u­lar nutritional/therapeutic ben­e­fits. For these rea­sons, it is very sought after.

Honey is rou­tine­ly test­ed by spe­cial honey lab­o­ra­to­ries for appear­ance, aro­ma, taste and colour. Main­ly, it is care­ful­ly scru­ti­nized to exclude residues. Most residues, how­ev­er, will be fil­tered in the bee’s body and nev­er reach the honey. Dr. Schier’s honey is test­ed by four inde­pen­dent lab­o­ra­to­ries, two in Switzer­land and two in Germany.

To chil­dren below the age of 12 months it may be a chal­lenge for their not ful­ly devel­oped diges­tive tract to digest the com­plex spec­trum of honey pro­teins, vit­a­mins and enzymes. It is there­fore rec­om­mend­ed not to give honey to chil­dren below that age.

As is the case with fine wine, the explic­it source of fine honey must be clear­ly stat­ed on the label at the back of the jar.

Fresh honey tastes best. How­ev­er, with an air­tight cap, stored at a cool and dark place, honey may main­tain its qual­i­ties for many years. In fact, honey might be the only food­stuff to remain fit for eat­ing for decades even when kept raw, untreat­ed and unre­frig­er­at­ed. Nev­er­the­less, Euro­pean food laws require a spe­cif­ic max­i­mum stor­age life to be indi­cat­ed on the label.

The for­ma­tion of honey crys­tals is a nat­ur­al process. It most often is observed when honey is stored between 10 and 18°C (50 – 65° Fahren­heit). At high­er degrees the crys­tal­liza­tion is delayed.

Mod­ern agri­cul­tur­al plant­i­ngs include few­er flow­ers. In addi­tion, pes­ti­cides, her­bi­cides and a mite (var­roa) threat­en bees. How­ev­er, bees have exist­ed for at least 40 mil­lion years, yet humans for bare­ly 4 mil­lion years. These actu­al man-caused immi­nences will even­tu­al­ly be over­come by the bees, but nobody knows how long this process will take.

It is best to scrape sol­id honey at the sur­face with a spoon until enough vol­ume is cre­at­ed to spread it. All heat­ing of honey above 35°C (95° Fahren­heit) car­ries the risk of destroy­ing pro­teins, vit­a­mins and enzymes. It is not advis­able, there­fore, to add honey to a hot bev­er­age for this same rea­son. Microwaves may dam­age honey.