CHESHIRE BEEKEEPERS' ASSOCIATION

Apes curamus et nos curant (We look after bees and they look after us)
Founded 1899
Registered Charity No. 227494
We've been buzzing over 100 years 1899-2012

Honeys and their origins

At last year's excellent Autumn Convention (an event to be repeated in kind this year), the guest speaker, an experienced honey judge, in a wide-ranging and entertaining talk, advised those who have ambitions to win prizes at honey shows to enter dark honey. He claimed it is easier to win the dark class and demonstrated his reasons for making this assertion.

All very well, I thought, but in 37 years of beekeeping, only once did I produce anything remotely dark and nothing approaching the lustrous, bitter chocolate colours with which some of our Association members win prize cards repeatedly.

So where are these very dark honeys originating? Aside from honeydew, Frank Griffiths, to whom I make frequent references in these articles, used to say that hawthorn produces an exquisite dark honey but only if you can persuade the bees to work it, which they seldom do because the dandelions are usually flowering concurrently. For this reason, fruit growers always clear their orchards of dandelions to ensure the bees seek out the fruit blossom. Frank also said that he obtained more dark honey after he moved from Hartford to Oakmere. This he attributed to plentiful sweet chestnut trees in the vicinity. I can vouch for neither of these claims.

The uncertainties surrounding production of dark honey raise the question as to where any of our honeys actually originate. Given a reasonable spring, I was always euphoric about my anticipated overall yield but I usually went from contemplating a holiday in the Bahamas to thinking myself fortunate at the prospect of a long weekend in Clacton by the time August came!

My honey was always light to medium—possibly because I did not normally grade my combs according to colour prior to extraction and, in any event, apart from seasonal variation, the forage was pretty much the same from year to year, comprising all the usual sources due to the indigenous local flora I was always happy to accept whatever came along, believing that, being away from intensive farming areas, the diversity of forage made for a subtle blend of flavours which I always strove to retain by using gentle methods when extracting and filtering. I was careful to keep the honey as cool as possible consistent with mobility, and not to overfilter the product such that it became stripped of pollen.

Being also away from ornamental woodland with exotic tree species, my main identifiable sources were probably dandelion, sycamore, horse chestnut, rape (usually), blackberry, lime (not every year), willow-herb, ragwort and water balsam. Whereas until recently I always thought the season was effectively over by the end of July (apart from ling heather), the increasing prevalence of both balsam and ragwort has extended foraging into September in recent years. Incidentally, if your bees work ragwort to any extent you may find your honey has a pungent, even unpalatable, taste. If so, do not despair, keep it until after Christmas by which time it will have mellowed, particularly if it has granulated.

I never thought of holly or ivy as major contributors, and nowadays clover is virtually non-existent. Similarly, field beans, top fruit and raspberries were insufficiently abundant around my static hives to have a significant impact. Far less for example than wild or garden flowers generally.

It would be interesting to know to what extent my mid-Cheshire experience compares with that of others. Why not drop a note to the Editor on the subject giving your location so that regional differences could be assessed?

Malcolm Brierley

©2005 Cheshire Beekeepers' Association

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