When Is Your Honey Actually Harvested?
A jar says “2024 harvest” — but from which week? Honey is a seasonal crop with surprisingly narrow windows. Acacia is a two-week flow in May. Tupelo is three weeks in April. Mānuka is a late-December-to-February sprint on the other side of the planet. We mapped 35 commercially meaningful varieties across both hemispheres to show when each one is actually supered, extracted, and jarred.
Based on FAO agribusiness handbooks, US university extension services (UF IFAS, OSU, Cornell), Persano Oddo & Piro (2004), Somerville's Honey and Pollen Flora of South-Eastern Australia, the NZ Ministry for Primary Industries, and the Spanish apicultural association ASEMIEL. Full source list and per-variety method: /learn/methodology. Published · ~7 min read.
5 honey varieties are currently in bloom or being extracted
Bees are working these flowers right now, somewhere in the world. Varieties at their peak month are marked with a star — buy these when the next year's crop ships.
First major Mediterranean flow of the year.
Every major variety, one row each, plotted across the year
Each filled bar is the typical bloom window; the white dot is the peak month. Northern hemisphere varieties cluster between May and September. Southern hemisphere varieties cluster between November and February. There are only a handful of true year-round honeys — and nearly all of them are eucalyptus, because Australia is the only continent where eucalyptus species bloom in sequence across all four seasons.
There is no global “honey season” — there are two, half a year apart
Plot every variety on a 12-month clock and the two summers become obvious. Northern varieties stack at the top, peaking May through September. Southern varieties stack at the bottom, peaking November through February. This is why a mānuka jar marked “2025 harvest” was actually produced in late 2024, and why U.S. clover jars dated “2024” were extracted in mid-2024.
What's peaking in every month of the year
Each card lists varieties whose peak flow lands in that month. Use this as a buying reference: freshness is at its highest 1–6 months after peak, then declines (slowly) from there.
- Kānuka · New Zealand
- Redgum · E. Australia
- Blue Gum · Tasmania, SE Australia
- Leatherwood · W. Tasmania
- Karri · SW Western Australia
No major variety peaks this month.
- Rosemary · Spain, SE France
- Orange Blossom · Florida, California, Spain
- Tupelo · Florida, Georgia
- Avocado · California, Mexico, Israel
- Sage (black/white) · Southern California
- Acacia · Hungary, Romania, Italy
- Blueberry · Maine, Michigan, BC
- Mesquite · AZ, NM, TX, N. Mexico
- Lavender · Provence, Spain
- Chestnut · Italy, France, Turkey
- Linden / Basswood · Central EU, Upper Midwest
- Cranberry · Massachusetts, Wisconsin
- Clover · US Midwest, Canada Prairies
- Thyme · Greece, Crete
- Wildflower · Everywhere with meadows
- Sourwood · Southern Appalachians
- Anzer · Anzer plateau, NE Turkey
- Fireweed · Alaska, BC, NW Canada
- Buckwheat · NY, PA, Québec
- Heather (ling) · UK moors, Iberian sierras
- Pine honeydew · Turkey, Greece
- Goldenrod · NE US, E. Canada
- Ironbark · E. Australia
- Sidr (Ziziphus) · Yemen, Oman
- Mallee eucalypt · Inland SE Australia
- Rewarewa · North Island, NZ
- Argentinian eucalypt · Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos
- Yellow Box · SE Australia
- Jarrah · SW Western Australia
- Mānuka · North/South Island, NZ
How to read a honey label once you know the calendar
A “2025 harvest” NZ mānuka was actually produced in Dec 2024 – Feb 2025.
Southern hemisphere jars labeled with a calendar year usually refer to the ending year of a season that began the previous December. Northern jars are simpler — the year matches the extraction.
Enzyme activity is highest in the first year.
Raw honey is shelf-stable for decades — but diastase, glucose oxidase, and volatile aromatics all decline linearly from the day of extraction. For max flavor, match your jar to the freshest window.
Most true monoflorals have 3–6 week flows.
If a seller offers fresh acacia, sourwood, tupelo, or sidr honey year-round without batch numbers or harvest dates, odds are they are blending across years or adulterating. See our Yemeni Sidr authentication guide.
Most small beekeepers extract once a season.
US buyers: expect fresh clover in late July, sourwood in late August, goldenrod in October. European buyers: acacia in June, lavender in late July, heather in September. Ask the beekeeper what they pulled last weekend — they'll tell you, and usually hand you a taste.
A honey can be raw, unfiltered, and still four years old. Ask for extraction dates — reputable beekeepers will happily tell you which week and which super it came from. Supermarket blends almost never disclose this.
Keep going
Two more data stories built from the same 210-jar catalog.
Methodology & caveats
- Bloom windows shown are typical onset-to-end ranges at the region specified. Individual years vary by ±2 weeks based on temperature, rainfall, and frost timing. 2023 European acacia, for example, was roughly 10 days late across France, Italy, and Hungary due to a cold April.
- “Peak” is the single month when the greatest share of that variety's honey is typically extracted, not the first flower open. For short-flow varieties (acacia, tupelo, mānuka) peak and bloom are effectively the same.
- Southern hemisphere varieties whose windows cross Dec 31 are shown as two segments in the chart, which is visually accurate but slightly misleading — the actual flow is continuous across year-end.
- We excluded varieties with highly regionally variable windows (e.g. generic “eucalyptus” in the northern hemisphere, which ranges from Spanish winter to Portuguese summer depending on species). Specific eucalypts appear under their own rows.
- Primary sources: FAO Agribusiness Handbooks (2019), Crane (1999) The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting, Somerville (2010) Honey and Pollen Flora of South-Eastern Australia, NZ Ministry for Primary Industries (2022), University of Florida IFAS Extension, Oregon State University Extension, Persano Oddo & Piro (2004), ASEMIEL (Spain), Al-Ghamdi (2013). Raw catalog data at /open-data.
Raw Honey Guide Editorial Team
Reviewed by certified beekeepers and apiculture specialists. Our editorial team consults with professional beekeepers, food scientists, and registered dietitians to ensure accuracy. Health claims are cited against peer-reviewed literature from Cochrane, JAFC, BMJ, and Nutrients.