Varietal honey. Is it worth the price?
February 26, 2023Producing a varietal honey is about how a beekeeper manages a honey flow to limit the flower nectar that makes it into a bottle. Like quality wines, craft beers, or artisanal cheeses, honey flavors are quite complex. The University of California-Davis developed a flavor lexicon with over 100 unique descriptors(1). These unique flavors are derived primarily by the flowers visited. I will discuss why in an upcoming blog. According to the National Honey Board, there are more than 300 varietals sold or produced in the US(2). These can be either monofloral, polyfloral, or regional. When more than 51% of the nectar is from a known single flower source, it is monofloral. This can be achieved by placing hives next to a field or orchard, such as an orange grove, that is predominantly a single flower type. A polyfloral varietal means that the beekeeper cannot be certain of the dominate floral source but still limits which nectars are in the final, jar of honey. An example is when small batches of honey are removed throughout a season to lock in the flowers in bloom. A regional varietal limits the nectar source to a geographical range. Examples of this are mountain-, or desert wildflower honeys. Although polyfloral, these honeys will be unique compared to a hive placed next to a Nebraska prairie.
Timing bee populations with the blooms is essential regardless of the type of varietal honey harvested. According to the Canadian Bee Council, a bee over its 45-day lifetime will collect nectar to produce 0.0288 oz of honey (3). Given there are 16 oz in a pound, a minimum of 700 bees are necessary for each 1-pound jar. Not all nectar collected is turned into surplus to be harvested. Much is used to directly support the colony as well as stored for winter. Therefore, the minimum number of bees needed is about 30,000. Bee populations in a colony are not constant throughout the year. The figure shown below is derived from a mathematical model of bee populations for eastern Nebraska. Population is a balance of eggs laid per day and life expectancy, which in the summer is about 45 days. In winter, when the queen stops egg production, populations may dip to 5,000 and by mid-June can top 50,000. You can see in the figure that there is an insufficient population of bees to produce early honey varietals such as Apple Blossom or Black Locust, or late season varietals such as Golden Rod and Buckwheat.
The beekeeper has options to overcome these deficiencies. Here at Country Road Bees, we inspect and designated production and support (resource) hives in February, assuming there is a day or two above 50 F. This is also when we make sure there are adequate reserves of honey to last until the first nectar flows of the year which start early- to mid-March. If not, we feed them a sugar product called fondant. Maple, Willow, and Poplar trees provide the early spring food sources. Unless temperatures are 60 F or greater, and no rain, the bees won’t leave the hive even if trees are in bloom. To ensure an early start to rebuilding the colonies, we feed the bees a sugar water solution that has an identical chemistry to natural nectar, and a source of protein that is similar to pollen. By early April, natural nectar and pollen sources, as well as a few warm days, allow the bees to forage, and for the queen to lay eggs in earnest. Should the population in a production hive grow too strong, a few frames of bees are moved to a resource hive and replaced with drawn comb. This process is called equalization. In mid- to late-April fruit trees begin to bloom. Start the process too early, or become lazy with weekly inspections and the bees could swarm.
Reproduction from a bee’s perspective is when the colony splits into two; a swarm event. This is triggered in part by season, which is the red line over top the black population curve, but more by the density of bees within a colony, more specifically, the space available for the queen to lay eggs. Bees use the comb in the brood nest to store nectar, pollen, and rear young bees. When nectar and pollen flows are particularly heavy, as they are in May and June, the queen can run out of space. To manage this, the beekeeper must check the hive and create space by removing surplus honey filled combs and replacing them with empties, as well as adding honey supers (we use mediums). This is called checkerboarding. When this is insufficient, the best thing is an artificial swarm, called splitting. Frames of young bees are removed to a new empty brood box, and either allowed to create a new queen, or a mated queen is added. Although this does reduce the population in the production hive, it is not excessive. Rather than swarm bees being lost, it allows expansion of the apiary. In fall, whilst swarming is not an issue, populations are on the decline in preparation for winter. Again, bees from a resource hive are used to boost populations in production hives.
To be sure, the figure is an estimate at best, no two seasons are the same and bloom times can vary by several weeks depending on the year. A good example of this is shown by the University of Nebraska’s Maxwell Arboretum bloom chart where a Crabapple tree might bloom as early as March 30 or as late as April 23 {4). A separation of only a few miles, the amount of sunlight, a valley versus hilltop, or timely rain too influences bloom time for the same species. Ultimately, the beekeeper must evaluate what is about to bloom and be ready to respond. We have four locations throughout Northeast Saunders County all with slightly different dominant flower types. Bees are overwintered at our homestead that has plentiful Willow and Maple trees. By mid-April, select hives are moved to an organic apple orchard. When the Black Locust is about to bloom early in May, hives are moved to those spots. The river bottom ground near us supports a good stand of Yellow Sweet Clovers, and one spot predominately White Sweet Clover, a hard-to-find, very light and very sweet, monofloral honey. In July, hives are moved to Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acres. Some of these are rich in Echinacea, some Bee Balm, and others Asteraceae. At most, any dominant flower flow will last 4-weeks, most 10 – 14 days, at which point honey supers are removed and replaced with empties in preparation for the next flow. By late August, when there is adequate summer rain, the Asters, Goldenrod, and Sunflowers begin to bloom, and flows may last to the first frost. However, most of this honey is left to the bees as winter stores. Each of these flows must be managed which takes time, fuel, and labor.
The last thing that needs considered is price. A varietal will start around $8.00 per pound and can be as expensive as $40 per pound for Manuka honey imported from New Zealand. Compare this to $5.00 or less per pound for big box no name brand. To the producer, these prices are justified because of higher production costs. Honey production for some varietals is also not an assured thing. Black Locust, or dessert wildflower, or hopefully this year Sandhills wildflower, only produce honey when environmental conditions are just perfect, yet hives must be set out every year. Is it justified to the consumer? Just like there are good quality but rather lackluster table wines, so too there are blended honeys that may cost $5 per pound or less. Producers blend to save money, or to a consistent appearance and flavor. Every bottle sold will be reliably the same. Varietal honey will be unexpectedly different. Is this worth the price? I enjoy diversity in nearly all things. Some varietals are light, fruity, and floral, others dark, broody, and bold. Some I like, whereas some I appreciate the nuanced flavors but will not buy again.
While we hope that you will look through and purchase one or more of our honeys, there are many more varietals that we simply cannot produce. Recently, to support a honey tasting event, I purchased carrot and radish honeys from Oregon and blackberry and cranberry honey from a shop in Illinois. My personal goal is to taste everyone of the 300 varietal honey proclaimed to exist. As I do, their flavor profiles will be published on a webpage under development. In the meantime, visit the US National Honey Board page at www.honey.com, find the Locator pull down menu and explore. Or simply search on your favorite search engine for the keywords “varietal honey for sale”. Have fun exploring!
1 UC Davis Honey Wheel
2 National Honey Board
3 Canadian Honey Council
4 UNL Maxwell Arboretum
