Honey is a seasonal product. While consumers enjoy honey year round beekeepers within Trinidad and Tobago typically experience their main flow between January and June a.k.a. the dry season. Yet, up until the beginning of March, this year, it was still raining. Two months down and four more to go.
For the season so far, many beekeepers are scratching their heads in confusion, describing this as something they have never seen before. “How can we have so much rain well into the dry season?” Well … this is climate change. And it is very real.
The flowering of the pink poui is usually a signal to beekeepers that the season is coming. We look to the hills in anticipation of the bright yellow clusters of the yellow poui to follow. The nectar produced by these trees provides nourishment for vital animals of the Caribbean ecosystem, such as bees and hummingbirds. The yellow poui can flower any time during the dry season as long as they lose their leaves. After three days, the flowers drop off and the trees start growing leaves. When the rain comes back consistently, between July and December, new leaves will grow again.
For those that are in T&T, when you go about your day if you spot the bold yellow of a poui tree you can be sure there is a beekeeper smiling somewhere. For us, that’s our sure sign to say, “Yes, welcome to the honey flow.”