Here in Britain, honey is produced primarily for the local market. With over 35,000 beekeepers throughout the country harvesting honey from Apple Blossom, Cherry Blossom, Hawthorn, Lime Blossom, Dandelion, and the more popular and commercially viable Borage and Heather; an excellent range of different honey types are available on our own doorstep. The beekeeper also plays an important role in the pollination of fruit crops, and he travels for miles with his bees in a season to help pollinate plants and trees that produce the fruit we see in our supermarkets.
Unfortunately production in Britain is limited due to the unpredictable climate in this country. In a normal year around 4,000 tonnes is produced in Britain, but we consume over 25,000 tonnes per year spread on bread, in cereals, in baking and cooking, or simply by the spoonful! Fortunately, this demand is met thanks to areas of the world with longer production seasons, and a surplus of honey available to trade. This also introduces us to a whole new range of aromas and exotic flavours from different parts of the world.
Apple Blossom Honey
Apple blossom honey is a light golden in color and may have a hint of apple in scent. Apple blossoms are an important source of honey during the spring in the northern and central US.
Borage Honey
Borage (Borago officianalis) is grown for its small black seeds which are harvested and crushed to make borage oil, or starflower oil, which has similar properties to evening primrose oil. The oil is very valuable and farmers and beekeepers have a mutually beneficial relationship; we get lots of honey and farmers get increased yields as their flowers are pollinated by our bees.
Cherry Blossom Honey
Monofloral honey is a type of honey which has a high value in the marketplace because it has a distinctive flavor or other attribute due to its being predominantly from the nectar of one plant species.[1]
While there may never be an absolute monofloral type, some honeys are relatively pure due to the prodigious nectar production of a particular species, such as citrus (Orange blossom honey), or there may be little else in bloom at the time.
Beekeepers learn the predominant nectar sources of their region, and often plan harvests to keep especially fine ones separate. For example, in the southern Appalachians, sourwood honey, from a small tree that blooms late in the season, is highly regarded. Beekeepers try to remove the previously produced dark and strong flavoured tulip poplar honey, just before the sourwood bloom, so the lighter sourwood is not contaminated. During sourwood bloom, there is little else for the bees to forage.
Monofloral honeys are also kept in separate tanks and labeled separately so as to command a premium price.
Raspberry honey
Its a light-yellow honey with a raspberry taste. In folk medicine it is widely used for treating diseases of upper respiratory tract, stomatitis, and as prophylaxis of influenzal infection. It is used for treating inflammation of alimentary canal and respiratory organs.
Sage honey
Its of bright amber colour or of dark golden. It has a tender pleasant odour . It is effective for treating kidney diseases, cough, neurosis heart diseases and neurasthenia.
Hawthorn honey.
It has a bitter taste. It is used in dietary and wholesome nutrition. It is useful for treating functional disorders of cardiac activity (with tachycardia), hypertension, and heightened thyroid gland function, cardiac asthenia, after an illness, angioneurosis, the initial stage of hypertension, insomnia.
Heather Honey
Heather honey is “the Rolls Royce of honey”. It is “very special stuff”. It is “one of those things they people love or loathe”. But how to get it is the key question for us beekeepers. Michael states that he hasn’t “learnt anything about the heather run from books, just trial and error over the years”.The heather honey is our premium honey gathered from our own hives spread throughout the Scottish Highlands of Perthshire, Royal Deeside and beyond.
The nector is collected from two distinct varieties of heather — Bell Heather (Erica Cinerea) which flowers from July onwards and Ling Heather (Calluna Vulgaris) which blossoms from August onwards and provides our main crop at Heather Hills.
Heather honey is a single flower (mono floral) honey which provides it with its unique, strong full bodied flavour making it popular with chefs and honey connoisseurs.
Our heather honey is distinctive amongst the honeys of the world with a rich, full taste of the Highlands. It is a dark honey which reflects its' higher than usual iron content and its abundance of healthy antioxidants. All honey contains vitamins, minerals and trace elements from the floral source it is derived from, which, in turn, is fed by the soil and water it is grown in. As a result, when you taste Scottish heather honey you are tasting the Scottish Highlands.
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