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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, MARCH 2017
Frank Lindsay, Life Member HONEY LABELLING: WHAT’S IN A NAME? BUSINESS
A month or so ago I had the pleasure of tasting a variety of different honeys packed by numerous beekeepers from around the country. I have been tasting honey for many years and you get to learn the tastes of your own regional varieties.
I do not extract several times through the season; rather, I mark supers so I have an idea of when they were put on the hive and, hopefully, what sort of honey I expect the bees to have produced. Sometimes the bees in one hive completely surprise you. They find and work a variety that other hives in the apiary seem to miss. You can see it in the different colours and by tasting the odd honey frame as it is being uncapped. Sometimes I’ll separate off a strong honey from a delicately flavoured one. Of course, commercial producers don’t do this as it’s time consuming; also their honeys will be blended anyway by the packer after they have sold it, so it’s not as important. The Codex Alimentarius To give honey a varietal (monofloral) name, all that is necessary is to have 50% or more of a particular honey. The rules for labelling honey are set out in the Codex Alimentarius, an internationally recognised document. It can be downloaded as a PDF; it’s interesting reading: http://www.fao.org/input/download/ standards/310/cxs_012e.pdf The document states that honey can be sold at less than 20% moisture; however, to export, it must be under 18.5% moisture. Thixotropic honeys like mānuka and ling heather have to be under 23% but at this moisture content, it’s on the point of fermenting if not handled correctly. If wet supers from the previous year were put on during a honey flow and were not completely cleaned out by the bees, the old honey can start a slow chain reaction. Over time, this process will ferment all the honey in that batch. Distinctive scents and flavours Honey is delicate. Like butter, honey absorbs any taints or flavours it comes into contact with, and can be affected by the length of time it’s left exposed to air and its
Honey competition entries at the British National Honey Show, 2009. Photo supplied by Maureen (Maxwell) Conquer.
Eucalyptus honey varies from mild to strong. When I first visited Australia, I didn’t like their honeys but over time I learnt to appreciate the different varieties and now like them. We don’t get the strong varieties here in New Zealand, and to my knowledge we don’t have huge areas of eucalyptus trees in the North Island, so any honey from these trees tends to blend in with other honeys. Whanganui streets are lined with eucalyptus, so hobbyists will get it in their honey late in the season. Some honeys have unique flavours but these can disappear very quickly soon after extraction. I once extracted a couple of boxes of Eucalyptus nicholii (‘peppermint gum’), which literally caused a peppermint explosion in the mouth. I put some aside and when another beekeeper visited, I got out the samples and we did a tasting. I expected the same result but only a few months later, that beautiful flavour was gone and there was just the butterscotch flavour of eucalyptus. What a disappointment.
surroundings. Therefore, it’s important that it’s packed into new containers, even when you are giving it away. After a while the honey will take on the taint from the lid of a pickle jar if you pack it in a used one. The taste profile also depends on where the honey was produced and the type of water the bees collect. When you first open a jar, quickly smell the scent of the honey. I say quickly because after a few seconds, this scent disappears. You can tell the difference between honey produced in a lemon orchard and one produced on a dairy farm. Sometimes bees collect urine for the salts and minerals and you can detect it in the first sniff; however, you can’t discern this in the honey. Some of the early bush varieties still fool me but one can develop a taste for most of our main varieties. I can also pick what variety of honey is going through the plant most of the time; e.g., that distinct cat’s pee smell when you are extracting kāmahi. Fortunately, the smell does not transfer into the honey.
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