The Beekeeping thread

[Taipan]

I've never really liked honey, but I've probably never had decent honey? Is it really that different to supermarket stuff?

[Ant]

The decent stuff is a lot more expensive, it's for those folk with more bees and honey.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I've never really liked honey, but I've probably never had decent honey? Is it really that different to supermarket stuff?

In a word, yes. At least, potentially.

It just tastes of more...less like generic sweet syrup, lots more going on. It's actually a reasonably strong flavour.

It's supposedly pretty common, even the norm, for Supermarket honey to be watered down and blended with other generic sugar syrups (dishonestly) even with reasonably expensive stuff. So much so that suppliers are trying to get labelling laws changed.

S'the same with Olive Oil apparently, nearly all of it is "cut" they say.

[Taipan]

I did buy a jar of manuka stuff in Tesco, but didn't particularly like that either, although it was better than the stuff my wife buys. Honey always seems to have a sort of smokey or burnt flavour to me? I think our farm shop sells locally produced stuff, I think i'll give it a go as I feel like I'm missing out on something here! Mind you, it'll take a lot to beat Lyles Golden Syrup!

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Is honey bee's piss?

[gremlin]

Is honey bee's piss?

No. Bee jizz.

Everyone knows that.

[Count Steer]

Some is very light and aromatic like acacia honey, some is quite 'grown up and may be an acquired taste. Heather honey tends to be quite strongly flavoured. Depends on what the main pollen source is.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Is honey bee's piss?

No. Bee jizz.

Everyone knows that.

Concentrated bee vomit innit. Definitely the best of the vomits you can buy in the supermarket.

Some is very light and aromatic like acacia honey, some is quite 'grown up and may be an acquired taste. Heather honey tends to be quite strongly flavoured. Depends on what the main pollen source is.

I've heard the stuff from old combs is darker and really strong, but you basically need to be a beekeeper to access it?

[Taff]

Is honey bee's piss?

No, it’s bee vomit.

Check the label on the supermarket stuff and it’ll say produce of eu and non eu countries.

Bought cheap from China, South America, wherever, blended and pasturised (I believe) and sold at £2 a Lb.

The taste is hugely different and I’ve lost count of the number of people that said to me ‘I don’t like honey’ and land up leaving with a jar or two in hand after tasting it

About 80% sugar btw with about 18-20% water

[Yambo]

I live in one of the biggest pine honey producing areas in the world apparently. When I first came to live here I was going to rent a couple of hives from a friend to learn my way around, as it were. I had no intentions of going into production but was just interested. Life got in the way though, as it often does, so I never got around to it. Most of my Turkish friends are bee keepers/honey producers, on a commercial scale and some of the biggest, plush looking shops in Marmaris are the honey shops.

Pine honey is lovely, a sharper, acidic taste (I used to filter my aquarium water through pine needles to reduce the Ph of the local water) than most other honey but it's only second favourite for me. Top of the list (for me) is eucalyptus honey, it is simply divine, more of a smoother caramel taste in contrast to the sharper pine honey. They are the only two types I buy and I've been paid for jobs with a kilo of local pine honey on a number of occasions. Eucalytus honey is more expensive than pine, half as much again but it's worth it and people are not going to pay me with it.

I buy the pine honey in the village and very often it'll not be filtered so may have the odd bee wing in it. Honeycomb is invariably littered with bee bits.

Top of the hill behind the village is Osmaniye, home to the honey museum, https://www.marmarisbalevi.com.tr/en . It suffered a bit of damage in the fires (nearly 3 years ago now) and a lot of hives were lost by local producers. It could have been worse but most of the bee guys move their hives north to Afyon for part of the year. The fires certainly put the price of honey up but then so does a dry winter.

[Taipan]

Local place sells, subject to availability, Spring, Summer Blossom, Borage(?) and Heather honey. Dunno what borage is and how does set honey come about?

[Noggin]

I sometimes buy the honey that comes with honeycomb, I'm like Homer Simpson eating it, but it's pure sugar and I definitely feel the crash from it later.

I remember my BDad giving us toast and honey with honeycomb . Probably the only time I had it (my mother probably told him not to do it again )

But I do remember it was lovely.

Must stop in at the local honey place in the summer. They live between turns 9 & 10, so probably about 1200m. I’m aware that some producers here (and I think this family are one) that transport their hives down to the lavender fields in spring (I think - whenever the lavender fields bloom) to create lavender honey!! The local honey is generally pine flavoured I think.

[Count Steer]

Local place sells, subject to availability, Spring, Summer Blossom, Borage(?) and Heather honey. Dunno what borage is and how does set honey come about?

Borage is the stuff that is traditionally put in Pimms iirc. We've got several in the garden, pretty blue flowers but the plants can get quite tall and leggy...and fall over.

Re Turkish honey, in various places we'd see hundreds of hives by the hillside roads in some places and were told they were itinerant bee keepers (on a near industrial scale) and they would move them around following the various pollen seasons for different plants/areas. In the States they shift millions of bees around 'on hire' to pollinate crops. I'm not sure but I don't think that honey is the main £ reason, the payments from crop producers is (honey may not even be involved). Amazing really, they farm in such a way that the insect population gets eradicated, then have to pay for pollinators.

Set honey? Dunno, don't like it much. I assume it's to do with crystallising the sugars.

[Count Steer]

Topically, right now on Beeb4, Martha Kearney on beekeeping.

[Taff]

Local place sells, subject to availability, Spring, Summer Blossom, Borage(?) and Heather honey. Dunno what borage is and how does set honey come about?

Set honey? Dunno, don't like it much. I assume it's to do with crystallising the sugars.

All honey will chrystalise given enough time but some will set quicker and harder than others.
Oil seed rape will set quickly and will go hard, ivy sets like concrete, mine tends to stay liquid until the house gets cold in December and then it'll be relatively soft set

Its to do with the ratios of glucose, fructose, sucrose and whatever other type of crose is in the mix, but being set doesn't alter the taste that much.

[Count Steer]

Local place sells, subject to availability, Spring, Summer Blossom, Borage(?) and Heather honey. Dunno what borage is and how does set honey come about?

Set honey? Dunno, don't like it much. I assume it's to do with crystallising the sugars.

All honey will chrystalise given enough time but some will set quicker and harder than others.
Oil seed rape will set quickly and will go hard, ivy sets like concrete, mine tends to stay liquid until the house gets cold in December and then it'll be relatively soft set

Its to do with the ratios of glucose, fructose, sucrose and whatever other type of crose is in the mix, but being set doesn't alter the taste that much.

I'm guessing the last time I had set honey it was supermarket's 'finest' and had the look and texture of lemon curd so may be why I wasn't taken with it.

(Having damned supermarket honey, I should add that M&S make much of their links with British bee/honey people on their web site...but their 'organic' honey comes from Romania).

The Martha Kearney programme I mentioned above ^^ looks to be quite good, it's a series and the first one was quite informative. Managing swarms etc. Stuff about how they had to destroy colonies in the old skeps to harvest the honey and something I didn't realise, spinning can preserve the comb so you can put it back. As telly goes, it's pretty good.

[Mr. Dazzle]

had the look and texture of lemon curd

I'll tell thee what though, making Lemon Curd with Honey and then shoving it between Macaron shells...

*chef's kiss*

[Count Steer]

had the look and texture of lemon curd

I'll tell thee what though, making Lemon Curd with Honey and then shoving it between Macaron shells...

*chef's kiss*

Might help me to quell my vomit reflex when lemon curd is mentioned.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Quite happily eat lemon curd with a spoon

I caught Mrs D eating a spoon of Biscoff spread today. Her argument is "its healthier than eating a waffle covered in it"...which is true, I suppose

[Supermofo]

I used to buy Gabriel's Set Honey from my local farm shoppe. Bloody lovely it is too, reminds me I've not bought some in a while so one for the shopping list. It's from a farm in Much Hadam down the road from me. Compared to the cheap shit the Mrs gets from Aldi its chalk and cheese different.

http://localfoodfreshproduce.blogspot.c ... h.html?m=1