My honey's blue

[Guinevere]

I love buckwheat honey, and purchase it whenever I can get it locally. But as dark as it can get, it is still clear, not muddy.

Think about dark amber maple syrup, same concept. Incredible flavor. And not muddy either.

[Econoline]

When I said "muddy brown stuff" I meant the honey in the picture, not buckwheat honey.


But I like rubato's idea even better.

[Gob]

An apiarist was amazed to find his bees were producing mint-flavoured honey after they descended on a waste plant for sweets.

Paul Snowden, who owns 10 hives in Riccall, North Yorks, was stunned by the unique taste of his produce, and vowed to find out where the distinctive flavour had come from.

Dumbfounded, he worked out which way the bees were flying and then traced their flight path.

After half a mile, he found them lapping up mint fondant at the SugaRich factory plant, near Selby, which recycles confectionary waste into animal feed.


Unique: The jar on the left contains the 'mint' honey and the one on the right is how it should look

The insects had sought an alternative to the nectar they usually take from flowers, which was in poor supply as a result of this year's washout summer.

The honey had an initially pleasant minty flavour, but a less pleasing metallic aftertaste due to the fondant being contaminated by the storage skips.

Mr Snowden, owner of Yorkshire Beehives, said: 'Usually the bees will find flowers from gardens, oil seed rape, limes trees, sycamore and chestnut as well as other meadow flowers.

'But this summer has been really naff with the rain and it has left the bee colonies starving because the summer flowers had not come out.

[MajGenl.Meade]

". . . and would those be re-used storage jars, sir?"

[rubato]

An apiarist was amazed to find his bees were producing mint-flavoured honey after they descended on a waste plant for sweets.

Paul Snowden, who owns 10 hives in Riccall, North Yorks, was stunned by the unique taste of his produce, and vowed to find out where the distinctive flavour had come from.

Dumbfounded, he worked out which way the bees were flying and then traced their flight path.

After half a mile, he found them lapping up mint fondant at the SugaRich factory plant, near Selby, which recycles confectionary waste into animal feed.


Unique: The jar on the left contains the 'mint' honey and the one on the right is how it should look

The insects had sought an alternative to the nectar they usually take from flowers, which was in poor supply as a result of this year's washout summer.

The honey had an initially pleasant minty flavour, but a less pleasing metallic aftertaste due to the fondant being contaminated by the storage skips.

Mr Snowden, owner of Yorkshire Beehives, said: 'Usually the bees will find flowers from gardens, oil seed rape, limes trees, sycamore and chestnut as well as other meadow flowers.

'But this summer has been really naff with the rain and it has left the bee colonies starving because the summer flowers had not come out.

In the picture the honey on the left appears to have crystallized which scatters light and makes honey opaque. The honey on the right is not crystallized and thus transparent.

The same thing happens when any solution has something which crystallizes or separates into a different phase. An emulsion where there are two liquids which form separate phases and one creates small bubbles will look the same. The interface between the two phases causes light to scatter and give an appearance which might range from cloudy to wholly opaque.

In the photo the honey on the left might have crystallized because it is more concentrated (more sugar per unit volume) because it was cooled, or because there is a 2nd component which changes the solubility of fructose in water.

I would put both jars in a pan of boiling water until they were both clear and then let them cool together in the cupboard to see if one was really different.


yrs,
rubato