Honey 101

[itself]

Can someone fill me in on the different kinds of honey? Whole foods has a ton of different types, mesquite, crystallized, amber, etc.

thanks in advance!

Lisa

[SadieKate]

You'd probably do best to Google it. All honeys are not the same just from a regional basis (as in general plants available) but some are from mostly single plant sources. We were able to get eucalyptus honey back in Northern California that tasted just like butterscotch.

http://www.honeyo.com/types.shtml

[nscrbug]

I love honey, but in all honesty...don't know much about it. The only types of honey I usually buy are either clover, wildflower, or orange blossom...and I prefer "organic". Sorry...that's the extent of my honey knowledge.

[zoom-zoom]

We were able to get eucalyptus honey back in Northern California that tasted just like butterscotch.

I do NOT need to know that things like this exist...I would be eating that by the spoonful!

[SadieKate]

Sorry!

Truth be told, I dislike clover honey which is the most common. But the eucalyptus, yum.

[shootingstar]

I love forest honey. There's a brand from Germany. It has ..an almost evergreen dark taste.

[badger]

there's been a lot of discussion about honey on these boards the last few weeks.

I think the thing to keep in mind is to try and buy local as much as possible (better for environment, better for you), and raw (unpasteurized).

[Bike Chick]

I like it in the comb............

[zoom-zoom]

Sorry!

Truth be told, I dislike clover honey which is the most common. But the eucalyptus, yum.

I love orange blossom honey, but it's tough to find around here. I like clover, but that eucalyptus sounds heavenly!

[OakLeaf]

Lisa will jump in before long I'm sure...

In the meantime, here's some of the recent discussion.

[tulip]

How do you train bees to only go to clover blossoms, or orange blossoms, or whatever? I mean, they go to whatever flowers are blooming, right? While there might be an orange grove nearby, you can't really claim that it's all orange blossom pollen, can you?

[OakLeaf]

For commercial apiarists, it's not about what's "nearby." Honey is really just a side business for them; most of their money comes from pollination. They take the hives to the pollinating crops, hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles.

Travel stress is one of the many things that's implicated in colony collapse disorder. Beekeepers with just a few stationary hives, such as sell in farmers' markets and local stores, usually differentiate their honeys by season, not by flower.

[Blueberry]

We have some local apiaries that carry their hives to local strawberry or blueberry farms. I would presume that the hives used for pollinating those fields would have "mostly" that pollen. On the other kinds that I've seen (e.g., clover), I have no idea. I've never seen our local folks do it by season.

[SadieKate]

Blueberry, same back in Northern Cal. Hives were placed in fields or orchards so the dominant pollen was identifiable from a single plant. I don't recall ever seeing any identified by season.

[OakLeaf]

Nothing cooler than tasting spring and late-summer honey side by side. Mmmmmm.