Italian Honey

[BrianO]

On hols, and in true fashion spend plenty of time already searching out and looking at the different types of honey for sale here in Tuscany.

Incredible to see the many many specialist honeys,

Orange,
Lemon,
Rosemary,
Lime ( Tilia Sp.Tree ),
Chestnut,
Honeydew,
Sage,
Acacia,
Multi floral,
Sunflower
Heather

Sure missing some..

Also the price , 500g/1lb is € 5.00 Euro for multi floral, just bought some , lovely caramel flavour, yields are double ours due to long season.

Though have their issues SHB arrived, still on a positive note, variety show of honey available in all Delis and at market, as a foodstuff it appears to be appreciated and valued.

Jars are very nicely labelled and presented.

 

[Canary Honey]

Local fresh produce is appreciated there, have you looked at the fruit and veg (even in the supermarkets)?
January and February can either be a metre of snow or twenty degrees there, or bees would get very excited with the latter but find little forage for months after.

 

[Al-In-Italy]

We lived in the Abruzzo region of central Italy for eight years and kept bees for six of those years at our farm in the Apennine foothills.

It is certainly true that even small Italian supermarkets normally stock a range of varietal honeys, but our experience left us wondering about the honesty of some of the labelling.

The major flow in the area of our house is the False Acacia (Robinia pseudoacacia) which flowers profusely for about a fortnight in mid-May. The trees are considered weeds there, since they are very vigorous and crowd out the native Beech and Oak. They grow along all the roads and rapidly colonise any patch of land left uncultivated for more than a few months. Contrary to what many in Britain believe, the weather in Italy can be wet, cold and generally miserable for man and bee in Spring, but if the weather is kind and if you've succeeded in nudging the hives to start building up while the weather is still very miserable in February, it is possible to get impressive Acacia honey crops.

Over the years, we had various problems with managing our hives to exploit the Acacia bloom, but a few years ago the bees built up in good time and the weather was warm and sunny for the Acacia. We replaced the supers that had been on the hives with empty ones full of extracted comb just as the Acacia started to blossom at our elevation and then pulled those supers off when the last of the blossom had faded. What we extracted was pretty amazing stuff: almost water-clear with a very definite Acacia blossom perfume. Acacia honey is known for being very slow to set and that honey lived up to the reputation; we eked it out for about three years and at the end of that time it was still perfectly liquid.

What we find a little peculiar is that most - if not all - of the "Acacia" honey you see in supermarkets is not clear, but definitely honey-coloured. In fact, that honey looks an awful lot like the sort of honey we extracted in the years when events conspired to prevent us from going for an Acacia varietal honey and we ended up extracting millefiore in late summer. That was lovely stuff too, but it was very definitely not Acacia honey by any but the loosest of definitions!

 

[Erichalfbee]

I brought home some orange and some lemon honey from Sicily.
They were both MOST definitely floral honey with orange and lemon added!

 

[BrianO]

I brought home some orange and some lemon honey from Sicily.
They were both MOST definitely floral honey with orange and lemon added!

Not so sure ... Spent a lot of time in Sicily and travelled the length and breadth. Huge citrus production area, like Calabria, bought plenty of citrus honey, orange, lemon. Lovely

 

[BrianO]

Contrary to what many in Britain believe, the weather in Italy can be wet, cold and generally miserable for man and bee in Spring, but if the weather is kind and if you've succeeded in nudging the hives to start building up while the weather is still very miserable in February, it is possible to get impressive Acacia honey crops.

Sure can be bad but varies hugely as country, as you know, stretches from Switzerland to Africa, in Toscana where I am, usually spring starts March and summer like weather can stretch to October.

Also the abundance and diversity of wildflowers is amazing , all which equal long foraging period, diversity of forage and abundance, and good nectar flow due to temps