My honey's blue

[Gob]

Beekeepers in northeastern France have been alarmed to find their bees producing honey in unnatural shades of green and blue.

The beekeepers believe the source of the problem is a biogas plant close to Ribeauville in Alsace.

It is thought the bees have been eating the sugary waste from M&Ms, small chocolates in brightly-coloured shells.
The plant operator said it regretted the situation and had put in place a procedure to stop it happening again.

"We discovered the problem at the same time [the beekeepers] did. We quickly put in place a procedure to stop it," Philippe Meinrad, a spokesman from Agrivalor, the company operating the biogas plant, was quoted by Reuters as saying.

The company, which deals with waste from a Mars chocolate factory, said it would clean out the containers, store all incoming waste in airtight containers and process it promptly, according to a company statement published in Le Monde newspaper.

A spokeswoman for the British Beekeepers' Association, Gill Maclean, said it was possible that the coloured sugar could have contaminated the honey.

Bee numbers have seen a rapid decline globally in recent years.

In the UK, a harsh winter and unseasonally heavy rain this summer has meant that bees have not been able to forage as much, and beekeepers have had to step in, offering sugar syrup, Ms Maclean said.

"Bees are clever enough to know where the best sources of sugar are, if there are no others available," she said.

As for the blue honey, the beekeepers say it is unsellable.

[The Hen]

Blue honey might be a nice accompaniment to blue cheese.

[oldr_n_wsr]

As for the blue honey, the beekeepers say it is unsellable.

I don't know about that. I think there would bee a market for colored honey.

[Scooter]

I don't think there would be a swarm of customers looking for it, but there might be a few buzzing around.

[The Hen]

Ouch. That stung.

[Lord Jim]

Hive never heard such sorry puns....

[Gob]

I don't think there would be a swarm of customers looking for it, but there might be a few buzzing around.

They'd be WASPs .

[MajGenl.Meade]

Coloured honey is not good for beesknees, senor. But please Hen, don't use the green kind with the blue cheese - blue and green should never bee seen without something in beetween

[The Hen]

Fow about a nice slice of fresh fig with some cracked black pepper?

[Gob]

[Guinevere]

That would freak me out, sorry.

[The Hen]

I think it could be really fun.

You could market it at kids.

The M&M honey.

Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom!

[Sean]

Exactly! Have these people never heard the expression 'Limited Edition'? They should be slapping 20% on the price for this...

[Joe Guy]

In regards to all of those punny buzz jokes, I think it would be best to just let it bee.

And from here on we should all just beehive.

[Guinevere]

Exactly! Have these people never heard the expression 'Limited Edition'? They should be slapping 20% on the price for this...

If it were pretty and clear, and the color was not quite so, um, vibrant -- sure. But that muddy brown and blue, ugh, it looks foul.

Of course, m&ms are foul (a statement which could get me kicked out of American, and perhaps a few other countries, too).

[rubato]

You could just add food coloring to regular honey.

But you would want to use a lighter variety because a lot of wild natural honey is very dark and will turn muddy and disagreeable-looking to some.



Buckwheat honey is very dark (and tasty). Buckwheat* was important in the Calif. honey industry because the first hives were imported to the San Diego area where it was a plentiful source of forage and helped the bees expand rapidly.



Our local honey was much darker when the eucalypts were blooming.

yrs,
rubato

* In spite of the name, California buckwheat is a woody plant which grows widely across S. California and forms dense masses of tough wiry-branched plants about 1-3 feet high.

http://www.smmtc.org/plantofthemonth/pl ... kwheat.htm

[Econoline]

My BIL used to keep bees when they lived in Michigan, and I recall him once planting a field in buckwheat just so he could get some buckwheat honey. (He never harvested or milled the buckwheat.) I assume it was a different kind of buckwheat from the stuff you pictured, but the honey was indeed very dark and tasty.

As for the OP, I think Sean's got the right idea. It's all in the marketing. Even the muddy brown stuff could be called "Chocolate Honey" and sold at at a premium.

[rubato]

"...
As for the OP, I think Sean's got the right idea. It's all in the marketing. Even the muddy brown stuff could be called "Chocolate Honey" and sold at at a premium.

If they made it painful or nasty-tasting they could sell it in the health food store as a 'detoxifying' agent for 10x the normal price.

yrs,
rubato

[loCAtek]

A teacher was doing a study testing the senses (taste)
Of first graders using a bowl of lifesavers.
The children began to identify the flavours by their colour:

Red......................Cherry
Yellow..................Lemon
Green....................Lime
Orange...............Orange

Finally the teacher gave them all HONEY lifesavers. After eating them, none of the children could identify the taste.
'Well,' she said, 'I will give you all a clue. It's what your mother may sometimes call your father.'
One little girl looked up in horror, spit her lifesaver out and yelled,
'Oh my God!! They're assholes!'

[dales]