At the top right corner of an inventory and sales list for honey producer Jerry Headley of Virginia Bee Supply, a little one word message next to the date of July 10 dominated the white paper: "Rain!"

On the one day local farmers actually did not need the wet stuff, those who came out Saturday morning to the Nokesville Farmers' Market at the southwest corner of Nokesville Road (U.S. 28) and Fitzwater Drive had to deal with a little drizzle from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. as four local vendors offered products under tents.

Walk-up customers wondering around the parking lot could chose from a range of items from from honey to meat to fruits and vegetables. All came locally, from either western Prince William or Fauquier and the owners of each all had to deal with a common enemy during the summer: the heat.

Headley explained that at his honey bee hives in Bealeton, the heat makes his buzzing workers "very cranky to the point I don't usually mess with them when it's 100 degrees."

Honey harvesting for the middle aged business owner with a steer skull tattoo on his left arm usually takes place in July and September, "depending (on) how cool it is."

The mounds of snow from the December and February blizzards contributed to an increased water table, which in turn helped make "extremely good" hives for harvesting, he said. Normal hives produce about 100 pounds of honey while this year, Headley explained he could generate 120-150 pounds.

A "mild spring," he said, also helped.

"The only challenge that I've seen so far is the fact that I should have pulled honey a week or two before so I wouldn't have to mess with the bees," Headley said.

Unlike wasps and hornets, which often die off during the winter season while the queen survives, honest bees "are different," Headley explained, "because they're not working themselves to death."

They instead congregate in the middle of a hive and generate temperatures up into the 90s. But when it's summer time and the outdoor air is even hotter than that, the bees become a bit more rowdy, according to Headley, which means he has to wear protective sleeves and a veil to prevent being stung. The extra layers of clothes of course just makes it hotter for him to work, especially given that he prefers to enter the hives in just a regular T-shirt.

"You have to know your bees," he said about how he avoids being stung.

Perhaps the biggest local challenge facing honey bees is not the climate, he said, but development as it destroys wildflowers.

Excessive heat, however, "is never good for a meat vendor for farmers' markets," said Susannah Grove, who runs Piney Meadow Farm in Summerville (southern Fauquier County).

Grove's specialty is raising animals fed with all-natural grains without injecting them with growth hormones or other substances. Essentially, the meat she produces could be considered organic without the title as it's a five-year, $7,000 process to become organic-certified, she explained. Instead, Grove just considers the beef, pork, chicken and goat products she sells to be "all natural."

The extreme weather patterns of the last year, ranging from blizzards to scorching heat, have their own affects on her animals. The pigs that mate and birth outdoors have to be kept in barns when snow stacks up higher than they are tall. But on 100 degree days, they stay in the shade.

"With the heat, they're not going to breed," she said.

Heat also affects how much feed Grove supplies for her animals. For instance, during a summer draught, she has to cut back on irrigating her crops that are eventually used as food for the animals. She then has to feed them more than usual because the grains they are receiving have less nutrients.

Grove's workload "triples" then, she said, "because instead of watering once a day, I have to do do it three to four times a day."

In order to keep her cattle healthy, she has to keep them active. During hot summer days though, they prefer to stay in the shade and sometimes won't wonder around until 8 p.m. at night when the temperature's cooler.

"I walk 30 acres" on those day, she said.

The other challenge facing smaller, local vendors like Grove is a coping with a slow economy. She's transitioned her business to focus more on retail sales than whole sales because her customers cut back on the quantity of their purchases. Instead of buying the meat of an entire cow, for instance, they're now more interested in select portions, which means Grove has to spend more time on finding the right parts instead of selling something as a complete entity.

"It's much easier to whole sale," she said.