Honey Color and Flavor Part 2

Honey straight from a hive is full of unique flavor and smells based on its location and season. With a little background information all these different variations can be appreciated with the same respect and admiration as wine tasting.

For comparison purposes, those little cute plastic bears you find in grocery stores are labeled as ‘honey’ but contain a homogenized product void of nuance. To offer a consistent taste, color, and viscosity, all types of honey that may have any uniqueness melted down and processed to create a mediocre syrup everyone has grown accustomed to. A boring, humdrum version of honey that really never excites a person’s taste-buds.

Honey directly from the source expresses many characteristics and attributes including color, texture, viscosity, taste, smell, and how quickly it may crystalize. These characteristics vary based on what plant and fauna the bees have been collecting nectar from – thus honey from the deep South, Northern Illinois or out west will taste different than the golden nectar at the 4 Queens Sanctuary.

How does this happen?

Foraging from the Flower: Flowers produce a sugary fluid called nectar as a means of attracting all sorts of insects for the purpose of pollination. As insects search for the nectar in the flower, the flower’s sticky pollen catches on their bodies and gets transferred to the flower’s stigma. The meeting of the flowers pollen and its stigma starts the process of pollination or fertilization, enabling the plant to make seeds for its next generation.

Turning nectar into honey: While out foraging, honeybees mix the collected nectar with enzymes in their mouth, then store the nectar solution in a special pouch inside their abdomen called a honey stomach. The enzymes break down the sugar into simpler forms which resist bacterial growth. At the hive, these worker bees start to dehydrate the nectar/enzyme solution by moving the nectar around in their mouths then deposit it into hexagonal cells that make up the hive. The dehydration process is then continued by the house bees. The house bees fan the filled hive cells with their wings to bring the water content below 18% at which point the cell is capped with wax and its contents are considered honey. This honey stays unspoiled and unfermented for years; honey has been found in ancient Egyptian tombs – unspoiled!

Tracing the honey back to its origin: Where bees get their nectar and pollen depends on the season and the available blooming plants in the area; bees may travel up to 3 miles to find nectar, pollen and/or water sources. This all contributes to how the honey tastes, as well as to its color and texture. When the honeybee is wrestling in a flower collecting nectar and pollen, she gets covered in pollen granules which inevitably find their way into the finished (capped) honey. This pollen not only adds to a honey’s unique characteristics, but it is the traceable indicator, not nectar, to which flowers the honeybee visited during her foraging. This pollen is collected in ‘pollen baskets’ and is also stored to make bee bread.

Honey bee with full pollen baskets; these are located on the bee’s hind legs.

A honey’s unique taste: Most honeys are a blend from various hives and many varieties of flowers that are in a certain radius of the honeybee’s hive at a certain time. There are also honeys referred to as “univarietal”, such as blackberry honey. Univarietal honeys are created by placing a hive in a spot where, within about a 3 miles (4 km) radius, there is an abundance of one type of plant blooming. Since honeybees will travel up to 3 miles (4 km) in any direction to forage, much of nectar and pollen collected will be of one particular plant whose nectar and pollen will be dominant in the honey (at least 45%) to producing a distinct flavor. These honeys are harvested right after a particular flower, usually a crop, is done blooming.

Sometimes a univarietal honey’s taste and look seems to correspond to the dominant plant it was foraged from. For example, wild blackberry honey has strong tasting notes of blackberry and even an indigo tint to the color. But often a honey does not have an obvious correlation to the flowers it was foraged from. Buckwheat honey does not really taste of buckwheat – it is a dark-colored honey with a rich, molasses taste.

Appreciating honey’s delicate characteristics: Just about anyone with the inclination can appreciate each honey’s character. It is not unlike becoming familiar with wines or cheeses. Here are some simple steps for getting familiar with a honey’s character:

• Observe the honeys color: What color is the honey? Challenge yourself to try to use descriptions that the color reminds you of, such as “dark chocolate” or “polished walnut”.

• Smell the honey: How does the honey smell? Sweet, savory, fruity? When working the bees, when I first open a hive the smells are amazing.

• Honey’s Texture: What texture and consistency does the honey have? Is it thick and smooth or maybe clear and runny? Has the honey crystallized? Nearly all real honey will eventually. The tiny pollen granules in the honey and sometimes other particles allow the crystals to form in the super-saturated solution of sugars.

• Taste the honey: Tasting the honey is the best part! The best way to taste several honeys is to gather some toothpicks or small tasting spoons. Take about half a teaspoon of honey and taste it. Is it immediately bright and astringent on the pallet? Or is it a warm and super-sweet? Let the honey melt on your tongue. Try to breathe through your nose; it will heighten the tasting experience. Now you can pick-up on the more subtle tasting notes. Hazelnut? Caramel? Burnt caramel? Lemon? Lemon rind?

Stored honey and pollen will be either harvested or the bees will make ‘bee bread’ which is used to feed the bees. In the lower right corner, you can see the bees have capped honey (white wax covering).

Here are some of the prominent flowers the 4QS bees may forage:

• Alfalfa is light honey with a nice mild spicy note and floral aroma.

• Blackberry honey is deep and rich while still being fruity.

• Buckwheat is strong, dark and spicy making it a good choice for marinades.

• Clover is a classic honey that's light, sweet, and floral.

• Goldenrod is a medium to dark honey with a bit of a bite to it, almost spicy.

• Honey Suckle: light in color, the honey taste as good as the flowers smell

• Wildflower honey is light and fruity yet richly flavored at the same time due to the variety of flowers from which the bees got the nectar.

Hopefully, you have enjoyed the two blogs on how honey gets its unique flavor and color!