By midsummer in David Smith’s backyard, flowers are in full bloom, and there’s a hum to the air. That means it’s time to begin extracting the first harvests of the year. Smith, who has been beekeeping since 1980, suits up in a foam-lined suit and veiled hat before making his way outdoors and toward his hives. “You can feel the excitement when you go out in the bee yard. It’s a frenzy,” he says. This excitement, called the honey hum, typically begins around the solstice when the days are longest, Smith explains. “And if the weather is warm, they’ll fly from dawn to dark.”

Smith is the founder and owner of Sparky’s Honey and Maple, a Hope-based company whose products are found on the shelves of Whole Foods Market, Royal River Natural Foods, Bath Natural Market, Lincolnville General Store, and more. After nearly 40 years of harvesting, Smith has perfected his crop. “We have people who taste our honey and say, ‘Oh my gosh, what do you do?’ and I tell them, it’s not what I do, it’s what I don’t do,” he says. For Smith, the best way to honor his honey is to leave it alone. Larger honey companies often filter their harvest and remove all traces of pollen, but pollen actually enhances flavor and provides added health benefits. Sparky’s sticks to the basics: after harvesting, the honey is slightly heated—anything above 85 degrees, or “a hot summer’s day,” as Smith says, would begin to break down amino acids and essential nutrients—and then pumped into a tank to settle. From there, the honey is collected and bottled. “It’s as pure as you can get,” says Smith.