Harvesting Ivy Honey

[BernardBlack]

Haven't opened up hive yet, but I've been told I'll need to take off any ivy honey that's in hive.

Apparently I can eat it or give it back to the bees? Never done this before, so any tips welcome.

 

[pargyle]

Haven't opened up hive yet, but I've been told I'll need to take off any ivy honey that's in hive.

Apparently I can eat it or give it back to the bees? Never done this before, so any tips welcome.

It's usually far too hard to extract and it's a bit of an antiseptic taste but some people like it - but frankly it's best left for the bees. If you have a lot of Ivy honey left in there then take a few frames out and keep them for feeding Nucs or starter colonies - the bees will like it more than you will. If you scrape the cappings off and the honey runs out then it's probably not ivy honey - taste it and you will know for certain. Same applies if there are a lot of stores left in there but you have a choice with runny honey !! Some people worry about taking honey from brood frames but I don't worry - the bees are cleaner than we are.

 

[MartinL]

Haven't opened up hive yet, but I've been told I'll need to take off any ivy honey that's in hive.

Apparently I can eat it. . . .

There are plenty of thing you can eat that taste like someone's already eaten it!!

There's something a-kin to the Emperors new clothes with all these "super foods".

Maybe you could extract it and sell at £15 a jar. Don't plan on too many people coming back for seconds though!

 

[Gilberdyke John]

There are plenty of thing you can eat that taste like someone's already eaten it!!

There's something a-kin to the Emperors new clothes with all these "super foods".

Maybe you could extract it and sell at £15 a jar. Don't plan on too many people coming back for seconds though!

Ancient wisdom used to dictate if it tasted awful it must be good medicine.

 

[wightbees]

I thought ivy was good if left for one season? Get loads here but i don't take it as i tried it and it was bloody awful

 

[ShinySideUp]

I'm currently doing a bee course and one week they brought in some different types of honey, ivy being one of them; I loved it. Pop it in your mouth and wait for a few moments for it to melt, delicious. Perhaps it's just me but I don't see anything wrong with it.