Heather honey -how can I differentiate between ling and bell in the comb?

[Amari]

I have previously posted that I have two hives on the heather at Dunwich Heath (Suffolk coast). The heather has been in poor condition (much of it brown and shrivelled) probably due to the July drought in these parts. However I probably have a super of capped on each hive (compared with two on my two previous visits).
Last year around the hives I only saw bees on the bell heather so I risked uncapping the combs and spinning - with good result and empty wet combs. Opening the hives this year there is a wonderful strong smell which makes me wonder if the bees have collected mainly ling (observation of the heather hasn't helped, hardly a bee to be seen).
My question (at long last): can one tell which is the predominant crop by scraping the comb prior to extraction? Obviously if it is ling it is not appropriate to attempt spinning because of its thixotropic (sp?) properties.
I would be interested to learn from others what crop predominates when bell and ling grow together.

 

[Amari]

Progress report.......After sitting by my laptop day and night (well, almost) breathlessly awaiting your advice I proceeded yesterday to the heather to retrieve my two hives for winter. I was pleasantly surprised to find two fully capped supers on each hive and the heather was in better fettle than at the last visit 3 weeks ago, especially patches of ling in moist hollows. The bees were far more active than in my home apiary 50 miles in land and were bringing in pollen+++. Fortunately I had taken empty supers with me so I drove the bees down into these using fume boards and will now leave the hives on the heather until the end of the month. I hoped I would be able to extract by spinning as per my last visit a year ago but only partially successful so have cut out the comb and put into T's 'budget' heather press. What a slow and messy business and could be expensive in the divorce court.
Ought to deploy cut comb next time but poor sales of this a few years ago = usual customers non-cognisenti e.g: 'do you swallow the wax?".
To cut a short story long: I couldn't tell, by scraping the comb, whether the honey was spinnable - I had to uncap, spin, and find the combs still heavy with honey.

 

[bontbee]

Hello Amari, I haven't seen this post before, but what about tasting the honey? I know ling has a very distinctive flavour, but have never tried bell. Is there a difference? ta

 

[Amari]

Hello Bontbee
Unfortunately I have a poor sense of taste/smell and so can enjoy most sorts of food and cheap wine - unlike SWIMBO!
I can tell heather honey apart from standard because it is more strongly flavoured but don't think I could distinguish bell from ling except by eyeballing the jar. As I expect you know ling bottled via a heather press is full of rather pleasing bubbles.
Four full supers yielded only a pitiful 31 lbs in jars and a huge amount of crushed-comb residue to feed back to the bees - so not wasted.