ABOVE: Terry Viesselman holds a honeycomb shelf as some of his 42 total hives are side by side in the background at Granada Gardens. A hive can contain up to 60,000 bees.

GRANADA – With the month of September being National Honey Month, Vee’s Bees Owner Terry Viesselman is hard at work through the summer leading up to it, harvesting his crop.

Vee’s Bees consists of 42 hives spread across locations in Trimont, Sherburn and at Granada Gardens in Granada. It’s been Viesselman’s hobby and pet project for 14 years, which he has continued to work on after retiring as Martin County Attorney.

June and July are the busiest months for the bees themselves, as their main food source for the area, sweet clover, blooms. By the first week of August, Viesselman said they are mostly done in terms of honey production.

With each hive, Viesselman said they start off similarly but then grow at their own pace.

“The bottom three boxes, that’s what I leave for them,” he said. “The bottom two, the Queen lays her eggs. Box three is where they build when they fill that with the honey. That’s what I leave for them to live on, it’s about 100 pounds, over the winter. The next boxes, we call those Supers. I keep adding those. As the bees fill it up, I add another one, add another one, and that’s the honey that we pull off.”

In his largest hives, Viesselman said up to 60,000 bees make their home.

There are several products he makes. On top of raw honey, Viesselman sells honeycombs, honey caramels and creamed honey. He said creamed honey is the preferred version in Europe and has a different process.

“Honey will sugar over time,” Viesselman said. “You see it on the shelf for a long time, starts getting sugary. If you put a fine crystal in it, then you put it down at a certain temperature, all the honey will sugar and it’ll actually be creamy like peanut butter. It’s 100 percent pure honey, but when you eat it, because it’s creamy and it sticks to your tongue longer than regular honey, it tastes much sweeter.”

All of Viesselman’s honey is raw. His personal favorite is honeycomb.

Infused honey was an experiment Viesselman tried in the past, using flavors like raspberry. He has also heard about the “hot honey” trend in food circles. When it comes to what he makes and doesn’t make, Viesselman said the fact it’s his hobby comes first.

“I do what’s easiest,” he said. “I’m retired. I don’t want to work that hard to make hot honey when I can sell my honey anyway.”

The honey can only be harvested once it gets down to 18.5 percent moisture, when the bees cap the honeycombs full of honey. While the humidity from corn makes bringing that moisture down more difficult, Viesselman said this year has been drying down at a good pace.

While there aren’t many honey sellers in Martin County, Viesselman said he has encouraged multiple of his former co-workers from his time as Martin County Attorney to pick up the hobby.

“Most of the people will have two to four if they do have them,” he said. “I help people get started. I always tell them, ‘Start with two, next year you’re gonna want four.’ So much fun, and every hive’s a little different.”

Throughout his time working with bees and selling honey, Viesselman said there’s one thing he’s found above all else.

“The bees are so much fun to work with,” he said. “There’s a saying of the beekeepers that they’re happy bees sting. Otherwise, everybody would have bees. The main reason I do it is I like to work with the bees. The more you have, the more fun it is. They make honey, so you gotta do something with it. That’s really why I started selling it. It’s satisfying because people really like it, and it’s fun.”

For more information, visit “Vee’s Bees Honey” on Facebook or call 507-236-4122.