FROM THE HONEYBEES TO YOU WITH LOVE
Having had the wettest March in England and Wales in 40 years, and baring in mind I now live on the borders of England and Wales, as you can imagine, not a lot has been happening up at my apiary. I waited and waited for the sun to shine and the temperature to rise so I could pop up and report on how/if they had made it through the winter but alas the weather never permitted such a blog to take place. As a result, instead, I thought I would talk to you about the recent reports on the findings of supermarket honey as I do think, from a beekeeper’s and consumer’s point of view, it’s important.
I was sent a disturbing article by a friend of mine, recently published in The Guardian Newspaper, as to how much of the honey consumers buy in UK supermarkets is not honey. I was going to say is not pure honey but changed my mind as, if it’s not pure then it’s not honey! Let me clarify this. It turns out that, apparently 80/90% of UK supermarket ‘honey’ is imported and a good percentage of that comes from China. 75% of the Chinese imported ‘honey’ has had sugar syrup added and therefore really shouldn’t be labelled as honey at all, because if it ain’t pure then it aint honey. Now here’s a shocker…. all honey exported from the UK is not pure… it is, in other words, sullied. And, in my humblest of opinions, should be referred to as ‘Syrup’ not ‘Honey.’
Now, as a beekeeper, not commercial, it’s a hobby, I have to act according to a rule when it comes to labelling my honey. I cannot, for example put a picture of honeybee on a flower, as that would indicate to the purchaser that the honey in this jar was sourced from this flower. As you can imagine, I have many pictures of bees on flowers, being a retired and still keen photographer which would make beautiful labels! Unless one lives on an almond plantation which, presumably covers miles and miles, (the honeybees fly up to 5 miles to collect the nectar), then there’s no guarantee about your honeybees’ source of nectar.
I won’t bore you with all the legal requirements but, if you really would like to know, the following link will take you to The BBKA’s, (British Beekeeping Association) rules and regulations. Enjoy ; )
https://www.talkingwithbees.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/BBKA-Selling-Honey-Advice.pdf
If you cannot be bothered, (and why should you be unless you’re a beekeeper?), below is a brief version taken from the link above!
1. The description of the product. 2. The name and address of the producer (within the EU). 3. The country of origin. 4. A ‘Best before’ date. 5. A lot mark -this could be the “Best before” date see 4. 6. The weight.
Sugar syrup mixed with honey is something I’ve suspected for quite some time. Often people tell me, after my talks, that they don’t actually like honey and I can almost guarantee when I ask the question “do you get your honey direct from a beekeeper or do you buy it in a supermarket?” The answer is “supermaket,” which is why they don’t like it - because it isn’t really honey at all… it’s syrup.
Honey is only produced by honeybees. Bumble bees don’t produce honey, neither do the many wild bees we have here in the uk. In fact, the honeybee is the only insect that produces food which we eat. The honeybees put in an astonishing amount of hard work and I think they deserve more acclaim!
HERE IS HOW OUR WONDERFUL HONEYBEES PRODUCE THEIR LIQUID GOLD
The honeybees source their nectar from the flowers. Nectar is 70/80% water.
A honeybee has two stomachs, one for eating and the other is for storing nectar. They have a long straw like tongue, called a proboscis. They suck nectar through this straw-like tongue into their honey stomach. A single honeybee may have to drink from more than 1,000 flowers just to fill this honey stomach and they can carry up to half their body weight. They forage up to 5 miles from their hive, but at this distance most of the nectar collected is used for the flight home.
On the way back to the hive digestive enzymes are already working to turn the nectar into honey. When the forager bee returns to the hive she regurgitates the nectar into the mouth of another worker/house bee who will pass it on to another and so it goes on. The regurgitation method is an important part of the honey making process as each bee adds more digestive enzymes to turn long chains of complex sugars in the nectar into simple monosaccharides like fructose and glucose. At this point the honey still has a high water content so they place it in the wax cells and the fanning bees beat their wings 180 per second to reduce the water levels to 18%. Once this has been done they cover the honey with a thin layer of wax and it’s ready for storage. Now that the honey has such a low water content and acidic Ph it won’t be subjected to bacteria and mould and therefore has an incredible shelf life both inside the hive and in your cupboards!
For 1lb of honey tens of thousands of bees have flown 55,000 miles and visited over 2 million flowers. Now that’s what I call team work. By the way… one little honeybee only makes 1/2th teaspoon of honey in her entire lifetime.
It’s this honey that we remove from their hives. But before you think we are cruel, let me explain. Bees are kept in hives and they never stop working, and end up producing far more honey than they can use. A good beekeeper will only take what is surplus to the bees winter requirements thus leaving them with all they need to get through the winter months.
To put the honey in the jars beekeepers first of all need to clear the honeybees out of the supers. (Supers are what we call the boxes we place on top of the brood box where the worker bees put the excess honey). We do this by using a ‘clearer board’ which is basically a one way street down to the brood box! It’s left on for 24 hours and by the time you go back you should have but a few stragglers left which we gently brush away. I use a feather, some people use a bee brush or a twig with leaves on works well too.
We remove the wax cappings, then spin the frames with the honey in an extractor. It is then sieved, to get rid of any bits of wax’ through a fine piece of muslin into a settling tank and left for a couple of days. The bubbles sometimes leave a thin layer of ‘scum’ at the very top of the settling tank which, if you cover it with a piece of cling film and pinch it upwards it removes it quickly and with very little mess. I love that I say that because anything to do with honey is a sticky mess! Finally we pour it from the settling tanks straight into the jars and put the ‘legal’ labels on, which tell you the truth, and nothing but the truth and all you need to know about the jar of honey you are buying.
But it doesn’t stop there. We return the wax cappings and spun frames to the bees but this time we leave a gap between the brood box and the supers and this way they don’t associate it with their hive and rather than fill up the frames again, they take it down and store it in the brood box where it should be for the winter. Nothing is wasted. The wax cappings are melted down and sieved once more and either turned into candles or perhaps some beauty products or, in my case, I take it to Thornes in Windsor where they part exchange it for fresh foundation for the following years hives. The frames are frozen for 48 hours to make sure they are clean and stored in sealed containers ready for use the following year. Boom!
Honey is an expensive product and it is, as I said earlier, only produced by bees. Not only is the bees work labour intensive but also that of the beekeeper, therefore we consider it to be a premium product. No wonder there’s profit to be made by fraudsters who mix the honey with cheap syrups.
If correct labelling were made law and people new exactly what they were buying it could make a difference. People paying less and eating syrup is absolutely fine, but let them know it’s syrup and don’t pretend it’s honey.
There is a UK government petition to make correct labelling law. If you would like to support the real beekeepers please follow the link below and sign away! Due to the lateness of this blog, I blame my trip to Uganda , you may only have one week left to do so.
"Bees work for man,
and yet they never bruise
Their Master's flower,
but leave it having done,
As fair as ever and as fit to use;
So both the flower doth stay
and honey run."
- George Herbert, The Church-Providence