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Does anyone know the flower source, or production processes that give dark honey? My local association members seem only to get clear golden honey, yet in bee magazines I generally see a range from gold the dark brown. Not being a tasting judge, I have never tasted the dark stuff (no - not the stuff down the pub).
Bell heather and Hawthorn are the two that come to mind instantly.
PH
As a honey judge I find most of the dark honey I get to taste is mainly derived from honeydew with bell heather the next most frequent source. Hawthorn honey is wonderful but I rarely encounter it.
Chestnut. Very dark and not to my taste but my husband loves it. We had it in Corsica
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Had Hawthorn once from an OSR site but the blasted bees had surrounded it with OSR... argh... looked really odd uncapped, this light honey with an oval dark centre. There were Hawthorn trees from an old fence line that the farm had left alone. Gorgeous taste though.
PH
One year one colony only got a few frames of a really dark honey - almost black - which I assumed to be honeydew. It was, I believe, July/August when it came in. Very strongly-flavoured too. No other colony collected it. Sold well with customers asking for more, however I have never seen it since.
In 2016 I had a small crop of honeydew that I quite enjoyed, nice dark strong & sweet tasting from a local pine forest. Flavour was a strong bland affair had as expected very sweet. By early July the colony was still building up from a late May swarm collected, come early Sept there was 15 odd lbs of the very dark honey which took about 7 months to set.
Honeydew comes from the waste of Aphids, I just cannot go there, no nectar involved there?
Insect juice honey doesn't sound that appealing I agree!
Although honey is ingested and then regurgitated with stomach-stuff added to make into honey. And we like it!
From an article on honey composition in the beefarmers magazine a while back it seems lots of London honey doesn't involve nectar either. They were finding lost of C3(?) sugars which suggested that the bees are "foraging" on sweet drinks/ice cream or anything with sugar in it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Greengage
There was some dark honey being produced near the Tay a few seasons back. Japanese knotweed was the prime suspect...which is a major honey source now in some parts of North America.
Japanese knotweed has invaded some of the tributaries of the Spey now C4U including the Knockando burn next to me. Hopefully they’ll eradicate it before it becomes a problem
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Be very wary of it esp the sap is it is highly caustic and burns badly.
PH
Sycamore honey is dark with a nice nutty flavour. It is in flower at the same time as hawthorn and I suspect that the majority of 'hawthorn' honey is actually from sycamore. My bees love hawthorn but only ever seem to collect pollen from it.
Snap. Have seen hawthorn honey ONCE....and it was not especially dark, and was not mines. Father and son, total 68 seasons now....never had a hawthoirn flow that gave much more than a lot of pollen and a strong smell in the hive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon
2 years ago we had the most amazing hawthorn blossom that the bees went mad for. The extracted honey was superb almost had a nutty aftertaste. I checked the pollen in the honey and was around 50% Hawthorn. Not that dark as I recall.
It was a rare year when everything came right together.
Most years around me it blooms and I find some pollen in the honey but not a lot.
Hawthorn does well on the west coast of Wales where I keep bees in years where the delicate first blossom doesn't get rattled off the boughs by gales. My experience is that the hawthorn honey is darker than sycamore, not a very scientific observation just that it's always a bit of a mix and in years when the sycamore is dripping the honey is lighter in colour and flavour and in years when the hawthorn scent is almost overpowering and the honey tastes the same as the scent then it's slightly darker.
When I have a minute (currently have family staying) I will look Wedmore up on this one.
PH