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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, MAY 2017
AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO EXTRACTING GWA HONEYDEW HONEY Dr John McLean
I extract small samples of GWA honeydew honey at home by scraping the capped honey from the frames, heating it to 72°C in a stainless-steel bowl that is sitting in a water bath, and allowing it to settle overnight. The following morning, the wax with bee pieces, etc., can be lifted off and the honeydew honey is easily decanted without any need to filter. The melezitose crystals stay as a gloopy mass in the bottom of the bowl.
The challenge is how to develop a higher volume extraction method which follows these principles. Professional Italian honey tasters rated GWA honeydew honey extracted in this way as better tasting than manuka honey! Recently a Swiss gentleman I spoke with expressed his preference for “forest honey” such as this. Another famous example is honey which is prepared from the honeydew of aphids feeding on conifers in the German Black Forest.
Figure 5
Extraction of willow honeydew honey
Water bath 75 o C
References Foster, B. (2016, March). Willow aphid trial in Bay of Plenty. The New Zealand BeeKeeper, 24 (2), 14–15. Foster, B. (2016, October). Combatting the giant willow aphid threat. The New Zealand BeeKeeper, 2 4(9), 19. Foster, B. (2017, February). Giant willow aphid research kicks off. T he New Zealand BeeKeeper, 25 (1), 9. Mittler, T. E. (1958). Studies on the feeding and nutrition of Tuberolachnus salignus (Gmelin) (Homoptera, Aphididae). II. The nitrogen and sugar composition of ingested phloem sap and excreted honeydew. Journal of Experimental Biology, 35 , 74–84. McLean, J. (2015, August). Have you seen willow honeydew honey this season? The New Zealand BeeKeeper, 23( 7), 6–7. McLean, J. (2015, September). [Letter to the Editor]. Melezitose sugar. The New Zealand BeeKeeper, 23 (8), 11. FIgure 4. Colony of giant willow aphid on a willow branch collected May 30, 2015. Note the very large adult aphid with the black tubercle on her back near the middle of the colony. No males are known for this species and the adults give birth to live young, a process termed parthenogenesis. Caption and photo: Dr John McLean.
Cool overnight
Top view and underside view of a hive tool scraping of willow honeydew honey from a comb.
Lift off wax and debris Strain
Honey
debris melezitose
Figure 6
Waikato Honeydew Honey 2016 Prepared by decanting, no filtering.
capping
willow honeydew honey
melezitose
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