# I just tasted REAL honey for the first time ever. Whoa! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 17, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172 "2012-05-17T04:25:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/41 "2012-05-17T17:25:49Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > !!! Honey should never be given to babies?! Never heard that before! Most bottles of honey seem to have that warning somewhere on the label. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/42 "2012-05-17T17:32:55Z")
Just to add, the color of honey does not indicate whether it has a lot of flavor or not. The earliest spring honey around here (Northern VA) is extremely light in color but has a wonderful floral smell and taste. It is my favorite and is what I think of as “honey flavor.” Honey from later in the season, like September, can be dark but almost flavorless. As a number have suggested, get thee to a local farmer’s market and by from the local beekeepers. Around here there are two types of local honey sellers: larger farmers who sell honey from within a few hundred miles and the truly local beekeepers who have hives within a few miles. The latter are harder to find because they have less product to sell but are well worth finding. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/43 "2012-05-17T17:33:44Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > Now go to try REAL maple syrup. Your mind will be blown! Noooooo! Real maple syrup will ruin you for Artificially Maple-Flavoured Pancake Condiment, and then you’ll wind up like me–taking a tiny container of maple syrup with you when you go to the diner in a mood for pancakes… ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/44 "2012-05-17T17:33:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > !!! Honey should never be given to babies?! Never heard that before! It’s true, when our kids were born the pediatrician recommended not giving them honey or peanut butter until they were 2 years old (for different reasons; I don’t think PB carries botulism). ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/45 "2012-05-17T17:39:52Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > I made a great dry, sparkling mead several years ago. It was like a fairly dry white sparkling wine with a distinct floral aftertaste - I used a combination of mostly wildflower honey, with some other fruit varietal honeys mixed in. Fabulous stuff. I’ve made dozens of different meads over the years. The one that has won the most awards is a sparkling ginger mead I call _Karen’s Downfall_. The best mead I have ever tasted was one made with honey and raisins and fermented with sherry yeast, then left to age. The bottle I tasted was 21 years old. I think Don still has a couple of bottles in storage. They are 29 years old now. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/46 "2012-05-17T18:14:31Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > ETA: Oh, I forgot to mention! I work in the pollination industry (though not with honeybees). Almond pollination in California is the largest bee-keeping pollination event in the world. I asked my friend Gordy why you never see almond honey. He said it tastes terrible! Way too bitter apparently. Chestnut honey definitely had a bitterness to it (different from the tamarisk honey I’d had), and I can imagine that if almond is stronger it might be unpalatable. Still, I made Gordy promise to get me a jar of it, so I’ll report back once I’ve tried it for myself. Interesting! So - question - I assume those busy bees are not only pollinating all those almond blossoms, but they are making honey from it to boot, human tastebuds notwithstanding. What happens to all that un-palatable honey? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/47 "2012-05-17T18:15:56Z")
The bees eat it, silly. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/48 "2012-05-17T18:18:45Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > The bees eat it, silly. Ha! I deserved that! ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/49 "2012-05-17T18:27:59Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > The best mead I have ever tasted was one made with honey and raisins and fermented with sherry yeast, then left to age. Intriguing. I suspect this would tend to produce a mead with icewine-like elements. I _was_ planning to use oak and orange blossom water in the next batch, but given that I love icewine even more than mead, I may have to reconsider. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/50 "2012-05-17T18:28:56Z")
Yep, silenus got it. Bees make honey to feed on during the winter. Domestic bees generally make more than they need, so that the beekeeper can just take away the extra. They can also be fed cheaper corn syrup and supplements, allowing the beekeeper to harvest more honey and/or sustain the hive over a longer-then-usual winter. If the beekeeper has unpalatable honey, he just feeds them that and harvests the good honey. Almond pollination is BIG business. Unfortunately, besides making bad honey, almond flowers don’t provide a good diet for the bees. It now takes beekeepers from all across North America to supply the number of hives needed for the enormous almond crop in California, which means that bees are being shipped on trucks in stressful conditions across the continent to go eat a poor diet in the almond orchards. On top of that, new generations of pesticides and fungicides are deadly to developing bees (but only get tested by the USDA on adult bees). And people wonder why honey bees are dying off! It’s gotten so bad that beekeepers are starting to look at bees as disposable investments. It’s cheaper to start a new colony after the pollination than to do the hard work of trying to sustain a stressed out, chemically damaged, poorly fed colony over the years. Bee keepers that used to replace their queens every two or three years are now buying queens two or three times _per year_! I’m seriously considering looking at what it would take to start a business breeding and rearing queens. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/51 "2012-05-17T18:51:40Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > It’s gotten so bad that beekeepers are starting to look at bees as disposable investments. It’s cheaper to start a new colony after the pollination than to do the hard work of trying to sustain a stressed out, chemically damaged, poorly fed colony over the years. Bee keepers that used to replace their queens every two or three years are now buying queens two or three times _per year_! I’m seriously considering looking at what it would take to start a business breeding and rearing queens. When I was learning about maintaining a hive through the winter I met a beekeeper who said he just lets them die. He takes all the readily available honey and the hive either survies it or dies. If it dies he just restocks the hive with package bees and they have a headstart because of the existing comb and some stores in the hive. Seemed weird to me at the time but he was a professional so he is making a profit at it. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/52 "2012-05-17T19:56:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕_Quoi, monsieur?!_ > [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Common mistake. He _meant_ to say it has a certain _je ne sais rien_. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > But it was such a perfect Freudian slip! No, I don’t know French. 😛 But I do know it should be _je ne sais quoi_ - I blame honey intoxication. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/53 "2012-05-17T22:08:37Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I’m very interested in apiary, though I’d never keep bees myself. I’m allergic to their stings, and I really don’t think that being a beekeeper who is allergic to bee stings is a good long term plan. It’s worse than that, [beekeepers are at greater risk of DEVELOPING allergies to bee stings](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9824397). > [@shiftless](#): > > When I was learning about maintaining a hive through the winter I met a beekeeper who said he just lets them die. He takes all the readily available honey and the hive either survies it or dies. If it dies he just restocks the hive with package bees and they have a headstart because of the existing comb and some stores in the hive. Seemed weird to me at the time but he was a professional so he is making a profit at it. Beekeeping is a crazy profession. Between colony collapse disorder, trucking hives everywhere, having to replace queens, etc. it’s one hell of a job. As a hobbyist beekeeping family we had a bunch of knowledge about bees but not about the business per se. For an interesting take on the commercial apiarists you can read [The Beekeeper’s Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America](http://www.amazon.com/The-Beekeepers-Lament-Billion-America/dp/006187325X). It has a pretty good coverage of a lot of beekeeping including the major issues like colony collapse, pressure from commercial growers who want pollination that isn’t profitable or healthy for bee stocks, [the vicious varroa destructor mite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa_destructor), and queens dying off. You can hear a [podcast interview with the book’s author](http://www.kera.org/2011/06/20/beekeepers-agriculture-and-the-food-we-eat/) if you’re uncertain about buying a book without more info. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/54 "2012-05-17T23:06:43Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > Most bottles of honey seem to have that warning somewhere on the label. Ha! I noticed it last night when I was scanning my bottle of Sue Bee Clover Honey last night for ingredients. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/55 "2012-05-17T23:07:22Z")
What kind of pollination is unhealthy for bee stocks? (I, ah, don’t think I want to eat whatever the answer is. Wait - is it a non-food crop? Rubber plants or something like that?) ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/56 "2012-05-17T23:36:41Z")
As a take off of the different tastes of honey from different sources of nectar, I thought I’d mention the possibility of [poison honey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bees_and_toxic_chemicals#Toxic_honey). I first read about poison honey years ago, in an article that told a cute story about an ancient town that placed hives with poison honey along the road at the outskirts of town when they heard that an army was approaching. The army looted the hives before reaching the town and got too sick to fight. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the town or the army, and nothing on the first few pages of the general Google search combined credible looking with story. So all Ihave is a link to the wiki article. If you’re thinking of harvesting honey from your yard, though, you might want to check that article. Apparently the common rhododendron, _Rhododendron ponticum_, is the plant most likely to offend. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/57 "2012-05-18T00:16:46Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > What kind of pollination is unhealthy for bee stocks? (I, ah, don’t think I want to eat whatever the answer is. Wait - is it a non-food crop? Rubber plants or something like that?) See post 50: > [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Almond pollination is BIG business. Unfortunately, besides making bad honey, almond flowers don’t provide a good diet for the bees. It’s not like almond pollen is poisonous to bees or anything, but it’s not healthy. As I understand it, crop pollination in general isn’t the best thing for bees. Like many creatures, they do best with some variety in their diet, and crops tend to be monocultures. ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/58 "2012-05-18T01:21:21Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > If you don’t like regular clover/wildflower honey because of the honey taste, you probably won’t like most of the stronger flavored honeys either. You might just not like honey! But you might want to try orange blossom honey. It has a very bright, mild flavor and it’s usually pretty easy to find. I can’t eat clover honey because a) it gives me heartburn and b) it just doesn’t taste that good. But a lot of the honeys give me heartburn, for some reason. (I have a treacherous stomach.) One that DOESN’T is the Trader Joe’s mesquite honey. It’s quite good, but it does crystallize really easily. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/59 "2012-05-18T04:24:48Z")
Last year I got a copy of the book [American Terroir - Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields](http://www.amazon.com/American-Terroir-Savoring-Flavors-Waters/dp/B004TE8FP0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337313569&sr=1-1) by Rowan Jacobsen. I found the chapter on honey so interesting that I bought several varieties from on-line merchants. What a revelation! My three favorites were tulip poplar, goldenrod and sourwood. The tulip poplar was dark and rich. The goldenrod smelled and tasted flowery. The sourwood was spicy. Not only were these far better than common clover honey - they were better than most fancy imported honeys. My favorite imported honey is [thyme honey from Airborne (a New Zealand company).](http://www.airborne.co.nz/Thyme.shtml) It has a strong herbal flavor. The same company sells many other fine honeys, including [manuka](http://www.airborne.co.nz/manuka.shtml), [kamahi](http://www.airborne.co.nz/kamahi.shtml) and [tawari](http://www.airborne.co.nz/Tawari.shtml). There’s no reason that the best-tasting honeys should come from crop plants, and in fact many of the best honeys are from wild plants. Monofloral honeys from crop plants are easier and cheaper for beekeepers to produce, both because it’s easy to ensure that most of the nectar comes from a single type of plant and because farmers pay them to pollinate their crops. Clover is a common cover crop, and I assume that’s why it’s such a common honey. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172/60 "2012-05-18T15:40:35Z")
Two of the biggest monocultures in US honey commercial production are clover and alfalfa. Both of these are grown for animal feed/hay. Clover is a very nectar-rich and nutritious plant for honeybees, with alfalfa being good for the bees but honeybees not being as good for the alfalfa. Alfalfa is pollinated with either a type of bee called a leafcutter, which doesn’t produce hives and honeycomb in harvestable ways, or by HUGE numbers of what we consider the common honeybee, the European honeybee. This blanketing of alfalfa fields with large numbers of hives is called saturation pollination. The main reason is because the pollination process for alfalfa [includes the bee being whacked in the head with the flower’s pollen bearing stamen](http://ohioline.osu.edu/b559/559_13.html). Bees tend not to like being whacked in the head, so they come in through the side of the flower, getting the nectar but not pollinating the flower. Alfalfa growers have had to choose between using large numbers of, usually young(therefore they haven’t learned the trick to avoid the whack in the head yet), European honeybees, to pollinate fields or going with the leafcutter bees, which means no usable honey is produced. Alfalfa honey production is in a bit of a decline as a result. Enjoy, Steven [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-tasted-real-honey-for-the-first-time-ever-whoa/622172.md?page=2)