Three Honeys
By ekpeach in Education | 2 comments
There are three honeys that I want to talk about. Wildflower, Gallberry, and Tupelo. The reason is I get the question quite frequently, “How do you know what is what?”
The answer is simply that I help the bees decide what nectar to collect. Each hive will work on one nectar source at a time. In the Spring, there is a smörgåsbord of flowers blooming. The pollen that is in the honey is from a variety of plants. Since I do not know which hive is collecting which nectar, the only thing I can do is collect the honey, extract it, and pour it into a barrel. The mixture of honey is then called Wildflower.
Gallberry is a bush in the Holly family that grows in a wide area here in the Southeastern U. S. It blooms around the 1st of April to the latter part of May. I take the hives to the Gallberry patch and place empty honey supers on them. As the bees orientate on their new surrounding, the first flower they find will be the Gallberry. That is the nectar they will collect. Just about the time the flow begins to wane I gather the supers of honey and take them back to the honey house and mark them as Gallberry. I then move the colonies to another location and put empty supers back on the hives.
Since Tupelo blooms about the same time as Gallberry, I have to have a separate group of hives for that honey flow. I then do the same for the Tupelo hives as I did for the Gallberry hives. Side note: The Tupelo is a tree that grows in the Apalachicola Swamp area here in Florida. It is mostly confined to this area and the unique property of this honey is that it does not granulate. There is another honey tree that is in the same family of the Tupelo called Black Gum, and has a similar taste and smell. However, Black Gum honey will granulate very rapidly. I have been told that it will granulate in the settling tank and will gum up the pipes if it is not emptied into barrels within a few hours. I don’t have first hand knowledge of this though.
When I extract, I only work with one type and clean the extractor and pipes before I start extracting any other type honey. This will insure that I do not mix the different types of honey. If there is any question as to what honey is in a bucket, I will put it in with the Wildflower. One cannot sell honey as a certain type of honey if he cannot tell the difference by the taste, looks, or smell.
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dpeach | Oct 22, 2007 | Reply
Do the honeys look or taste any different? Why would anyone care if there is a difference in one or another?
ekpeach | Oct 22, 2007 | Reply
Thank you for your questions. Each class of flowers have a unique taste in honey. Just like the fragrance of smell. A Rose does not smell like a Tulip. A Tulip does not smell like a Marigold. If you combine all the different honeys together, then that is the taste most people who were raised on honey are accustomed to.
Some honeys are sweeter than others. Some are smoother and do not have a strong lingering aftertaste. There are different shades, from dark to almost water clear, that are categorized as dark amber, light amber, and clear water white. Most of the honey in this area are dark and light amber. Tupelo is a light amber with a hint of green. Some of the clovers are almost water clear.
As to why anyone would care what the difference in taste would be, You like Cappichino coffee. I do not. Therefore I would not buy Cappecheno.
Hope this helps you explain to some of your friends.