HONEY ?

I remember my first contact with the Manuka honey industry. I had parked the car near to hives in the scrub where the Manuka bushes were in flower. The bees were in a feeding frenzy and showed no interest in us.
We had a lovely picnic by the river and the afternoon was spent reading and lounging in the shade.
On returning to the car it was unrecognisable. Instead of silver it was now a pale mustard colour. Close up the mustard colour was a series of tiny spots.
Turns out the last thing bees do before returning to the hive was to defacate and the car was under the main flight path?
Lesson learned. Never did that again. ?

The “Trust me I’m a doctor” article on Manuka honey which you can google gives a summary of the medical findings which you may find interesting @NotSphagetti
Swallowing it has no proven health benefits. They even state that you should not use it on topical wounds as only the medical grade is safe. This can be bought in surgical dressings.

I'm certain here was a study about the benefits of Manuka honey and bacterial gastro-enteritis some years ago. Can't remember much about it but if anyone's interested it might be worth googling. Also there was one where they used manuka honey chews (of some sort) and compared it to a control of chewing gum and found the manuka honey helped with gingivitis and periodontal disease.
I suppose this second study was definitely the antibacterial properties Esspee

I was told that all honey is antibacterial to some extent though. Even our own wildflower honey. Manuka is obviously especially so.

NotSpaghetti Sorry if I didn't make myself clear. I was not intending to suggest that NZ exports fake Manuka honey. If you are a honey importer or producer anywhere in the world your product can sell for a vast amount of profit if you label it Manuka honey. The distinctive flavour can be replicated. Or you can mix your honey with the genuine article.
Please remember that swallowing it has no proven health benefits which is why I posted on this thread in the first place.

only new Zealand produces manuka honey, and if people will pay premium for honey with a high manuka factor then they'll charge it, also as manuka is wild the is a finite supply.
Most honey will solidify unless it something like acacia, which stays liquid for a long time, or heather which is not actually liquid but it stays clear. Often if you buy liquid honey it will have been heated up to keep it liquid, heating destroys most of the flavour and aroma. ~Rape honey goes hard very quickly, clover always goes hard too.
If you have a local beekeeper they will probably do you some minimally filtered honey, unfortunately lots of people will complain if there are bits in it, fair enough if they are huge bits, but we had people complain about little bits of propolis because it looked like 'black bits' so you have to be careful selling to the public, who expect a supermarket type product. Beekeepers eat the stuff that has lots of bits of wax in, just filtering out the biggest bits of wax

Very interesting Esspee.
We didn't buy it btw. But maybe the much cheaper 'good quality' honey we bought was also fake? It did had a piece of honeycomb in it.

From this you can assume that most Manuka Honey sold is fake.
Or, maybe Esspee that New Zealand is another of the countries that China is re-directing through? Or both?

@Fennel. I lived in New Zealand for a while so this is general knowledge I gathered while there. There will undoubtedly be more up to date information available online.

Manuka honey is gathered from hives placed near areas of wild Manuka which is a bush similar to the Tea tree bush. Like tea tree Manuka has anti bacterial properties in the same way as many of our herbs e.g. Thyme. Clearly you cannot control where your bees gather their nectar so the honey produced has varying amounts of anti bacterial properties. The honey can be tested and the strength of this “Manuka Factor” quantified. The higher the number the better the anti bacterial effects.
Now to the science. Honey with a high Manuka factor has been scientifically proven to aid healing when used in surgical dressings and because of that it commands high prices. Results can be dramatic. e.g. an ulcer which refuses to heal despite a variety of standard treatment can respond beautifully.
When Manuka honey is ingested (e.g. on your morning toast) there is no scientifically proven benefit to humans.
There is huge anecdotal “evidence” of it’s efficacy when ingested which corresponds to the scientific consensus that it has an unusually high placebo effect.
All this is a really long winded way of saying that if you use the best quality on a wound it is likely to help. If you eat it you are just eating a very expensive honey.
I would also point out that NZ produces 1,700 tons of honey a year yet 10,000 tons of it is being sold annually worldwide including 1,800 tons in the UK alone.
From this you can assume that most Manuka Honey sold is fake.

We have always been bee conscious gardeners, and am fascinated by them. I watched Martha Kearney’s series The
Wonder of Bees and it was very informative. I have only seen one swarm. It was huge and rather scary as it passed over my garden. I heard later that a beekeeper had been following its progress across the neighbourhood. We have a local Honey Trail where you can visit local bee keepers and buy their produce. Delicious.

agnurse I think it’s not actually the queen that chooses the new hive site, there are bees that go out looking for the best place to settle and then they “persuade” the colony to follow them. That’s what I understand anyway.

Also, the reasons some swarms are gentle and others more cross is to do with how recently they left the first hive, the weather etc.
If they are still full of honey they are ok. If they are unexpectedly caught in a cold snap or struggling to find a new home they will be using those stores up and getting more jittery. Sometimes it can take 3, 4,5 days to rehome themselves if a beekeeper doesn’t catch them.

The tastiest honey we have ever had was on a small Greek island. We were told that the bees fed on thyme in the forest.

NotSpaghetti - thanks for your reply.
There's a Jewish tradition of using honeyon fruit and bread at our New Year - around Sept/Oct. So our local Tesco stocks up on various types but I noticed most of the Manuka honey was left on the shelves. And reduced later.
It had been about £15 for a small jar .

In many areas there are local beekeeping organizations that people can call if they see a swarm. A swarm is a large group of bees resting in one location, such as on a tree. This would be a group that split from an original hive and is now looking for a new home. In many areas beekeepers will come and collect the swarm and provide a new home for them. Safe for all concerned. (Although in fairness most swarms are not really dangerous; they're following the queen, not looking to attack or sting anyone.)

The bees do seem to love any herb flowers NotSpaghetti, oregano too. I let it flower because the bees love it but then it seeds itself everywhere!

Perhaps they know what is good for them - I bought some throat sweets containing thyme and they do seem to be effective.

I just bought a bottle of Squeezy Honey in a local supermarket and was pleased to see it was produce of Belgium.
I use a lot of it but had never before thought to check the country of origin.

Fennel, the Manuka flower only blooms for a matter of days a year (about 14 I think) and it only grows wild in specific remote areas of New Zealand (and possibly, Australia?), mainly in the forest areas.
I think it’s simply rare and hard to harvest.
Also, there will be variations as to how much manuka is actually in manuka honey so I suppose that also will reflect the price (some will have more mixed wildflowers than others).

If bees are managed for honey production then feeding with a sugar solution is often practiced where the beekeeper has taken too much honey from the bees for them to get through the winter months. Even careful beekeepers may need to sugar feed occasionally though.

With the weather and climate as it is, the intensive mono-crop agriculture and grubbing out of our hedgerows it’s no wonder really that bees are under stress. There was an Argentinian study of essential oils as a way of protecting colonies from Varroa - they tried a number of oils including lavender, eucalyptus, laurel and thyme. I think thyme was most successful. We had planted a variety of thymes and lavenders near our garden-based hives as it happens but never had to contend with Varroa - neither there nor at the farm sites where the other hives were kept.

I love honey, have a small teaspoonful every morning.
Mainly local honey, but Rowse or Sainsburys own set honey is delicious.
When on holiday in UK I always buy some local honey.When cooking Bramley apples ( for pies and crumbles) I use honey instead of sugar.

I saw some Manuka honey in Tesco, and it's VERY expensive.Does anyone know why?
www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/297860903

Thank you NotSpag for the info. Never tried it with lavender but hope to do so.

I have often wondered if the practice of feeding sugar to bees has led to their unhealthy and susceptibility to mites etc.
It takes 12 bees to make one teaspoon of honey in their lifetimes so we plunder it at our peril!

We need to look after our bees.

I discussed this with a vet friend yesterday. She says many Chinese bees are fed solely on sugar
Where I used to live in Scotland, I ate honey produced in the village to fend off hay fever. I have yet to find a local producer in my new area.
Thanks for all your posts! Good to have a friendly, informative, non-political discussion!

NanKate have you tried lavender honey? It's a bit medicinal for my taste but there are beekeepers who set their bees on the lavender in Provence. It will be available online. It is usually expensive.
Or you could infuse your own honey with lavender maybe? I had this with cheese and figs once and it was totally delicious!

I love the taste of lavender in biscuits, chocolates etc. Can anyone recommend honey with lavender in it ?

I will definitely check my honey in future Marmight.

We kept bees and as Mommawolf's family didn't use protective clothing or gloves. We did use a veil though. I have some much treasured pictures of the children out collecting swarms and doing various bee-related things. I do miss them so much.

The international honey situation is complex. The big issue was that in China in particular but also elsewhere (Argentina springs to mind) many beekeepers were dosing their hives with antibiotics. They were mainly using chloramphenicol and this was turning up in the finished products.
Importers of honey to the EU (such as Rowse) I understand, have a good testing regime and there is also a massive lab in Germany which is used by the EU to test honey imports. Within the EU we don't allow this routine use of antibiotics and some people in the honey industry have been working with China to help them comply with rather than circumvent the rule. The Chinese producers were getting round the ban by attempting to import via an intermediary country, usually somewhere with no honey industry of their own. This is why we still do have Chinese honey here in England but if it is imported through a reputable EU based company it is almost certainly not containing antibiotics these days.

Regarding the USA (please bear in mind that this info may not be 100% up to date) they banned Chinese honey because it was too cheap and not because of the antibiotics issue. The US particularly liked Chinese honey in fact, as lots of it is of the "ultrafiltered" sort which stays runny in the bottle/jar and is barely recognizable to us here. It has had most of the "goodness" washed out in the filtration process (obviously this removes impurities such as bits of dead bees but it also removes pollen for example). It also involves heating to high temperatures to drive off the water which was added to the honey to help "wash" it through the filters. This means the honey will stay runny. The US likes its honey pale, clear, runny and smooth on the whole. They filter their own honey there beyond recognition using the ultrafiltration methods including using diatamacious earth as well as the heat treatment. In Europe we aren't allowed to do this and don't allow imports of honey filtered this way. The truth us that here in Europe and in Canada and other places we are happy with honey that sets or crystalizes so that is less of a problem.

Another scandal in the honey industry was (and probably still is) that unscrupulous producers were diluting the honey with sugar-water. I personally believe that if your honey is stronger tasting this is very unlikely.

Obviously I think we should all be eating local honey really but in truth I know we can't all afford it. In my opinion we need to uphold our food standards once we leave the EU if we are to retain any honey protections.

Yes. We love bees in this house.
... And I personally will remember forever the sweet smoky smell of my husband during our beekeeping days after a day working with the hives.
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