BBKA Forum

A summary about honey colours, textures etc... from the previous posts

Borage honey, if very pure looks like water in a jar. Usually a slight tinge, but very pale and translucent.

Buckwheat honey
Very Black colour and runny. When set can look brown. Tastes musky? Not a sweet honey

Heather
Bell heather honey (the elusive gold) is red and spins out of frames.

Heather
Ling heather (the money maker) is amber and thick and needs pressing out.

Horse chestnut should also be dark with reddish tints
only yields when it's warm

Knotweed honey
I believe it has a red tinge to it

OSR / Oil seed rape -
The whiter the honey and the harder set the honey, more OSR nectar is in it. Tastes very sweet

Lime honey
Has been described as having a light mint flavour
Lime honey is greenish and MUST have a mint taste. The number of keepers with so called "lime" honey that is green but no mint taste amazes me.

Rosebay willow herb I believe should be very pale

Water balsam
Light coloured honey, sweet


Does any one know the characteristics of Ivy honey?

Nice put together Chris. I would add for heather honey that it is one of the few honeys that smell of the flowers it comes from. It's the scent of the moors in a jar. Plus must be thixotropic, jelly like when stood but turns to liquid when agitated.

A rare beast of another monofloral honey is Hawthorn. Its a medium amber colour with a distinct nutty taste (according to Eva Cranes, Honey). You often see it appearing in frames as the OSR is finishing. I sometimes come across some noticeably darker honey in them just as OSR going over and Hawthorn coming into bloom. Never enough for a crop....for me at least. I have tried tasting some of the darker honey ....but can't remember if it was nutty or or not. Also this season we had a distinct smell of "cats pee" in the supers when the hawthorn was in bloom this year. Honey is with National Honey survey and I am awaiting their analysis.....but certainly for me it won't be pure Hawthorn by any means.
Also it doesn't yield much nectar most years. Like lime it need s some very specific conditions, warm and humid.

Ivy is stong in taste and smell. Starts off dark liquid and sets as fast as sunflower and OSR. Eventually turns white when set and can be mistaken to set OSR. Have to get the timing right when taking off the hives, too soon and it will easily ferment. Leave on too long and it has set solid in the comb. When removing frames best to extract straight away. No time for a cup of tea first.

Beefens30 wrote: ↑

24 Oct 2020, 17:04

Ivy is stong in taste and smell. Starts off dark liquid and sets as fast as sunflower and OSR. Eventually turns white when set and can be mistaken to set OSR. Have to get the timing right when taking off the hives, too soon and it will easily ferment. Leave on too long and it has set solid in the comb. When removing frames best to extract straight away. No time for a cup of tea first.

thanks Nigel and Beefens30, my next question then, what's sunflower honey like? this year I have seen lots of sunflowers in field marguns, never knew it set!

Sunflower honey starts off light brown with orange hints then within a few hours begins to turn orange. The higher percentage of sunflower in an extraction the more orange it is. Medium taste I would say but some don't like it. Sets quickly and another one that you can't hang around with but helps when you have poly hives.

Sunflower honey starts off light brown with orange hints then within a few hours begins to turn orange. The higher percentage of sunflower in an extraction the more orange it is. Medium taste I would say but some don't like it. Sets quickly and another one that you can't hang around with but helps when you have poly hives.

Beefens30 wrote: ↑

24 Oct 2020, 20:34

Sunflower honey starts off light brown with orange hints then within a few hours begins to turn orange. The higher percentage of sunflower in an extraction the more orange it is. Medium taste I would say but some don't like it. Sets quickly and another one that you can't hang around with but helps when you have poly hives.

That's really interesting beefens30. A mate had some orange honey in a hive this late summer. It's located in north Leeds on an allotment. We didn't really know what it was but I'm assuming now it was most likely sunflower

I have just remembered that last year during mid summer was the only time i have seen my bees working one particular field and that field was Phacelia..it was a huge sea of purple around 300 yards from my apiary..i knew the bees where working on it by watching there flight line in and out of the apiary and by watching the bees bringing in lots of Blue/Purple pollen..
From what i have seen and tasted from Borage i would say Phacelia is very similar in colour and texture but slightly stronger in aroma and taste..i admit to not being a fan of honey but i still have a taste during extraction and to date i would say that the Phacelia crop of last year was the best honey i have tasted upto now..i had roughly 200lb of the stuff which i was sold out of in a very short time..

Chrisbarlow wrote: ↑

25 Oct 2020, 09:16

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That's really interesting beefens30. A mate had some orange honey in a hive this late summer. It's located in north Leeds on an allotment. We didn't really know what it was but I'm assuming now it was most likely sunflower

The only way to be really certain is to study the pollen in the honey. With multifloral honeys it can be tricky, but with monofloral honeys, or honeys with predominantly one source.. not too difficult.
Ragwort honey is also supposed to be quite yellow/orange.

NigelP wrote: ↑

25 Oct 2020, 16:55

Ragwort honey is also supposed to be quite yellow/orange.

Isn't ragwort honey described as not palatable though?

So I suspect that might be a defining factor. Ragwort, unpalatable, sunflower, sweet and pleasant