Honey Bees in the Garden: Honey -- How Sweet It Is and Isn't

Honey is considered a sweet treat by many people. Most plants produce a nectar that is sweet, but there are some plants that produce a bitter flavor. 

There are different kinds of honey.  Most people are familiar with monofloral honeys such as clover and lavendar honeys but did you know that there are also carrot, alfalfa, avocado, blackberry, pumpkin and sage as well as other flavors?  These honeys are produced where there are a lot of the plants to pollinate, such as in a carrot field that grows carrots to supply garden centers with seeds.  There are also wildflower honeys, which are a blend of all the different nectars the honey bees collect during the same period of time. 

Then there are the plants that produce a bitter flavored honey such as heath, bitterweed and fetterbush. California White Oak produces a bitter honeydew that is unfit for table use.  These honeys are left in the hive to feed the honey bees.

Honey comes in all different colors from white to very dark amber.  Black mangrove and cabbage palm produce white honey, while Texas brazilwood, gallberry and broomweed produce a dark amber honey.  Wildflower honey can be light amber to dark amber depending on what's blooming during the season.  Here's a sampling of honeys we collected from our hives last spring, summer, and autumn.  Plus one that was collected from a wild honey bee hive. 

The flavor of honey also varies from a mild tasting honey to a very strong tasting one.  Generally, the lighter the honey the milder the flavor and the darker the honey the stronger the flavor.  Of course, there are exceptions to those rules. Goldenrod honey is light to medium in color but has a bit of a bite to it in flavor.   Wildflower honeys can vary in taste from month to month during the season due to the change in what's blooming during the month.  It also varies according to location and can even be slightly different from year to year in the same location due to weather, such as the amount of rainfall or sunlight. 

Here's some honey trivia you might find interesting.

A honey bee visits 2 millon flowers to make a pound of honey.

A hive of honey bees fly over 55,000 miles to bring you a pound of honey.

The average worker honey bee makes 1/12 teaspoon of honey during her lifetime.

It would take about one ounce of honey to fuel a honey bee's flight around the world.

Honey bees consume about 40 pounds of honey to make a little over 2 pounds of beeswax.

Photos are my own.  Scroll over photos to learn which ones were produced when.

 Reference for honey flavors and color:

http://www.douglasfarm.net/honeynectarinfo.htm

Reference for honey trivia:

http://www.captainjohnshoney.com/trivia.htm