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Tasting honey today? Let’s talk about it…

Honey tasting is essential for the beekeeper, as every honey will taste differently. Some may have more robust flavours than others, some may have bad taste altogether, while others may have the savour of a lifetime experience.

But what are we tasting in the honey?

All various types of honey have 3 types of natural sugars produced by the flowers: Fructose, Sucrose and Glucose. These are contained in different ratios depending on multiple parameters such as plants, rain, sun, the season of the year, continent, etc.

Is it sweet? Well, honey produced by bees will have 80% sugars and 20% moist (water), while these ratios may change either up or down by 1-3%. Note that if the honey becomes too wet, i.e. more than 24% of water, it will go sour and ferment.

Once we have tasted the sweetness of the honey, there is a strong flavour going all around our mouth (the same concept as wine tasting!). This flavour reflects the flowers’ perfume – the hard-working bees have within their skills the capability to bring flowers aroma into the honey, and consequently process the honey with its flowers origin perfume. These perfumes can be at times extraordinary, while at other times they can be bad, as if the honey has gone off.

Yet, while all kinds of honey will be edible for the bees, for us human-being honey-eaters, the bad honey can cause a few runs to the loo or tummy aches caused by overeating of the good ones.

Most kinds of honey will usually taste very different from each other, which is remarkable for diversity. It will depend on plant type, soil type, season, weather, minerals in the soil, and possibly other factors.

Honey will improve its flavours as it goes solid and grows older. This is because it preserves itself for hundreds of years in sealed jars. So, we have been tasting 38-year-old honey, and continue to taste it every year to find that it is still great to eat.

Most importantly, the taste will tell you how much these bees are loved by their beekeeper. By tasting our honey, you will understand the relationship we have with our gracious bees. We treat every bee like a Queen!

Finally, everything is about moderation. A few teaspoons of honey a day are good for you, however, over-consuming can make you sick, and it’s not recommended. I know from personal experience because I’ve done it many times before.

Enjoy every teaspoon of honey – it doesn’t get any better than this.

Honey Events

In Australia, beekeepers can experience “Honey Events”. This phenomenon occurs every once in a while in different parts of the Big Red Island (AKA Australia). In these events, beekeepers suddenly observe a high volume of honey being accumulated in short periods of time. This can be combined with flowers that flower out of season, either early or late, following heavy rain or after a flood.

These events are so unique that they might occur once every 3 to 9 years. On some occasions, it may even happen once in 30 years. These uncommon events create different types of honey given the unusual flowers and nectars involved, which do not flower together usually. Some of these events make a fantastic combination of flavours.

Typically, a seasonal harvest can be extracted within days. The honey would keep coming in. Effectively, the bees will accumulate as much as the beekeeper can extract. Experienced beekeepers will always be on the lookout for Honey Events. Some has got the memory of the fantastic run in 1989 and 2002. Each of us still remembers how we pooled out 18kg of honey on a Monday arvo to find another 18kg on the following Sunday within the same hives, produced from the same flowers… Apparently, the legend of a “new swarm in a new box” who filled a full hive box within a week is true. I have seen it happening with my own eyes, when for a period of 3-6 weeks straight, our hives were kept filled with honey, week in and week out.

These honey events have created myths and stories and a constant chase after the ultimate flow, where honey is constantly produced by the hard-working bees. Beekeepers will drive thousands of hives on road trains around Australia, expecting to experience these honey events, but unfortunately, in many cases, the disappointment is as high as the expectation.

Photo by Timothy Paule II from Pexels

Not anywhere else around the world plants and trees can produce so much nectar like the trees in the Land Down Under can. This is one of the unique characteristics of the Australian flora, where a single large mature tree can flow more than a tonne of nectar. How do we know? The bees collect the nectar and produce honey out of it; hence they help us with those calculations. Alternatively, four big mature ironbark trees or blue gum trees on a single acre can produce 4 tonnes of honey. No other crop will provide that much income per acre. It’s a fact.

Through extensive honey production, bees can teach us a lot about the cycles of honey flows, rain and drought, and much more. Bees can teach us how to make the most out of the land without impacting the trees, forests, or even take us to the next level of intelligent farming where bees and trees create the best environment for other forms of agriculture, all combined.

Contact Dolfi for a one-on-one discussion.