THE couple who own Tassot Apiaries here, Jean-Claude and Beatrice Tassot, may not have the biggest or flashiest stall at the Princeton or Morristown farmers’ market. But without them, the pickings at those and the four other markets where they regularly set up shop might be quite a bit slimmer.

The Tassots sell wildflower honey that they bottle and distribute from their 10-acre Buzzing Acres Farm here. In addition to the liquid kind, they make whipped, spreadable and flavored honeys. Creamy hot pepper, which pairs well with cheese, is a particular favorite, Mr. Tassot, 56, said.

In addition to their bee-derived products, which are also sold through retailers at 40 gourmet shops in New Jersey, Manhattan and Pennsylvania, the Tassots are the indirect providers of a lot of the produce that surrounds them at farmers’ markets.

Their nearly 300 hives at farms in Hunterdon, Morris and Somerset Counties pollinate local peaches, tomatoes and cucumbers for the summer harvest. And in the fall, they can take some of the credit for the bounty of apples, pumpkins and squash.

“The farmers need the bees to pollinate, and we need the land for the bees,” Mr. Tassot said, so the farmers keep most of the Tassots’ bees, and he takes care of them. “Everybody’s happy.”

Mr. Tassot, who has been keeping bees as a hobby since he was a child in Burgundy, France, said he produced about 10,000 pounds of honey each year.

On a humid mid-July morning at Buzzing Acres, he was busy tending to the 20 hives that he keeps on his own property, carefully lifting the lids to get to the “supers” — the top tiers of the bureau-like contraptions that house the colonies of roughly 50,000 bees each.

Once the lids were safely off, he removed rectangular frames covered in bees, and sometimes wax and honey, to determine which hives had produced enough honey to harvest.

After the “cap” of beeswax was peeled off with an electric knife, the frame was placed in an extractor, which uses centrifugal force to remove the honey while preserving the comb.

Summer, after the bees have gorged on spring nectar, is prime honey-producing season: most hives yield roughly 30 pounds in a single harvest, but in some, beekeepers can take up to 75 pounds. (A colony of bees must retain roughly 60 pounds of honey to feed itself during the winter.) The season can last until September, because plants like goldenrod bloom in July and August, allowing bees to collect nectar for honey-making later.

Farmers have been relying on beekeepers to supply insects for their crops since modern transportation allowed such an arrangement, according to David Mendes, president of the American Beekeeping Federation, based in Atlanta.

In New Jersey, the practice has become increasingly common in recent years: since 2008, membership in the New Jersey Beekeepers Association has doubled, according to its president, Seth Belson. The group, which is based in Hightstown, currently numbers 900.

Two thousand registered beekeepers tend hives in New Jersey, according to Tim Schuler of the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, who is the state’s official apiarist. The practice benefits not only honey lovers but almost anyone with an appetite, he said.

“Most of the foods we eat that you might consider exciting are the result of pollination by honeybees: blueberries, apples, melons,” said Mr. Schuler, 50, of Richland.

Mr. Schuler teaches a three-day beginning beekeeping course at the Rutgers EcoComplex, the Rutgers University environmental research and extension center in Bordentown. It is held three times a year, with the next class set for October. Until 2006, he taught it just once a year. But then colony collapse disorder, or C.C.D. as it is known among beekeepers, struck, and interest in beekeeping grew.

C.C.D. is a mysterious condition that causes worker honeybees to abandon their hives. Scientists are unsure of the cause, but it has accounted for vast losses of bees throughout the country in recent years, Mr. Schuler said. He attributed the increased interest in beekeeping to the news media attention to the condition. “People started to understand the importance of honeybees,” he said.

Anna Trapani, 60, who owns Trapper’s Honey in Clarksburg, in Monmouth County, with her husband, Angelo, has understood the importance of bees since she was a child watching her grandfather make honey in Jackson. Now she helps Mr. Trapani, 62, collect and bottle honey in the couple’s “honey house,” outfitted with a large, drumlike stainless-steel extractor and scores of five-gallon pails ready to be filled with raw honey. The Trapanis have 75 beehives on 30 acres of land.

For several years running, the Trapanis’ Trapper’s Honey — which they sell bottled in liquid and cream forms at the Freehold farmers’ market, and to restaurants including the East Hampton Grill on Long Island and the Hillstone Restaurant Group in Manhattan — has won awards at the honey show put on each February by the beekeepers’ association and the State Department of Agriculture.

Ms. Trapani said she was “a little particular” about her honey. Many beekeepers commingle the honey they extract in a given season, so the color of the product is uniform. As the summer goes on, honey gets progressively darker; by the time the last batches are collected in the fall, it can be “almost as dark as molasses,” Ms. Trapani said.

The Trapanis do not commingle the honey they produce — approximately 3,000 pounds a year — and they keep the flavors distinct. In the honey house, Ms. Trapani showed off a rack of honey ranging from the lightest — the black locust, collected in late May or early June — to a “stronger-tasting” deep brown, which is collected in the fall after the bees have pollinated the buckwheat the Trapanis recently started growing.

“People at the farmers’ market are especially interested in the varietals,” Ms. Trapani said.

They are also interested in the obvious. “The first question we get is, ‘How many times do you get stung?’ ” said Mr. Tassot, who, on a bad day, can find himself removing 15 or 20 stingers.

“I don’t like it,” he said. Nevertheless, he shares the resilience of Mr. Trapani, who keeps a hood and sting-proof jacket around for visitors to his hives but hardly ever uses them himself.

“Sometimes they get cranky and they’ll sting, but most of the time, you just approach the hive carefully and they’re docile,” Mr. Trapani said.

“They’re neat little critters, aren’t they?”

For information on Tassot Apiaries products: (908) 264-4504 or tassotapiaries.com. For information on Trapper’s Honey products: (609) 259-0051 or trappershoney.com.