I was reading a wikipedia article on honey and it says
“his article refers exclusively to the honey produced by honey bees (the genus Apis); honey produced by other bees or other insects has very different properties.”
So I guess my question is what “different” properties does it have?
What other animals make honey? I’m assuming other types of social bees make honey. Would it be THAT different from honeybee honey?
Bumblebees make honey. I tasted some bumblebee honey when I was a child, at my grandfather’s farm. It wasn’t very good. It was runnier and less intensely sweet than honeybee honey.
I asked about the native Australian bees and sugarbag earlier this year. I got a little input from that question, but not a lot. I tried a thread search but all I got was a hang. I suggest you look up sugarbag.
Well, some of the other bee’s honey can give you a bit of a buzz.
I suppose you could argue that honeypot ants make “honey” – it’s in their name, at least. People eat them, but I’ve never heard of “harvesting” their honey. (Probably not economically feasible, is my guess. Honeybees make a lot of honey. I don’t think honeypot ants store anything like that amount.
Besides, amorphous “honey” is probably an easier sell – even with being “bee vomit” – than “honey from an ant’s butt”. even though those are gross oversimplifications. Really gross ones.
No funny bizzzness allowed!
How very drone.
There’s no dancing around the idea that you’re Queen of the hive mentality around here.
I guess I’ll just buzz off now.
Earwigs make honey, too.
In fact, when you combine that with bone meal, and some FDA approved food dye, you get those popular “Conversation Hearts” they sell at Valentine’s Day.
Don’t worry, that’s not true. It’s just a joke from Futurama.
Although I’m unsure if earwig honey would be more or less gross than that “ant butt” honey linked to earlier…I mean, assuming it would be made like regular honey, which is to say vomited out, it seems to reason that’s it’s less gross than having to (theoretically) squeeze a bunch of ants till the honey comes out.
You don’t have to squeeze the ants (although, as the articles mention you can). Most people apparently just bite 'em.
Maybe they could be marketed under some suggestive name, like “Bite my Ass” or “Sweet Cheeks”.
In many countries, recipes that call for lemon juice also say one may substitute ant squeezings if one is lacking lemon juice.
It seems formic acid and citric acid are quite similar in flavor. And ants are just chock-full of formic acid. Which explains why formication is the sensation that ants are crawling on one’s body.
Or Bit-O-Honey which tastes like what I’d expect ant squeezings to taste like.