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The secret of purple honey

Back in August, Aubrey from central North Carolina asked if I had any experience with purple honey. Specifically, he wanted to know what makes it purple.

Although I have no personal experience, the idea of purple honey has fascinated me for years. Like a lot of folks, I first heard about it in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. In that book there is a brief reference to purple honey and blueberries. In truth, it seems that purple honey only appears in the southeastern states, that it appears mostly in dry years, that it accumulates in only some hives, and that the amount produced is usually limited to a few frames or a partial box.

Many people claim that bees eating the fruit of blueberries, blackberries, or elderberries causes the color. Although bees are known to occasionally sip on ripe fruit (see below), beekeepers who have harvested purple honey claim that no berries were ripe when the purple honey was produced.

Others claim that specific soil conditions affect the nectar of some plants causing it to turn purple, and other people write that, “bees have to work the blooms in a certain order in the make the honey purple.” Without some science to back them up, I can’t accept these conjectures either.

I tend to side with the folks who say that purple honey comes from the flowers of the kudzu plant. For starters, kudzu and purple honey (sometimes called blue honey) share a geographical distribution in the southeast, whereas blueberries and elderberries are found everywhere. Also, purple honey is said to taste like grape jam and smell like grape soda—descriptions that are often applied to kudzu flowers as well.

Furthermore, kudzu seems not to be a favorite of honey bees. But in dry years—especially during a summer dearth—the bees will forage on it to a limited extent. This comports with the fact that purple honey is most often collected in years of drought and never collected in large quantities. As I mentioned in several recent posts, honey bees often do well on invasive species, many of which have multiple advantages over native ones. With few natural enemies to weaken the invasives, they often thrive under conditions where the natives fail—and the honey bees are quick to notice.

I’m sure someone has done a pollen analysis of purple honey to determine its floral source, but I haven’t been able to find one. In the meantime, I place my bets on the kudzu and I eagerly await my first taste of southern purple honey.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Kudzu vine in flower, the most likely source of purple honey.
Kudzu vine in flower, the most likely source of purple honey.
Bumble bee drinking peach juice during a fall nectar dearth. The bee left a small wet depression in the peach flesh.
Bumble bee drinking peach juice during a fall nectar dearth. The bee left a small wet depression in the peach flesh.

Honey bee forage: black locust

The black locust tree, Robinia pseudoacacia, is famous for producing a fruity and fragrant honey that ranges from water white to lemon yellow to yellowish green. A batch of monofloral black locust honey with little cross-contamination from other flowers can be as clear as a glass jar. The honey is high in fructose so it can be stored for long periods without crystallizing.

The black locust tree is native to eastern and southeastern North America, but has spread throughout the United States and much of Canada. A member of the Fabaceae (pea family), the tree has nodules of nitrogen-fixing bacteria on its roots which make it an excellent species for re-vegetating poor or damaged soils. In addition, its tolerance for low pH has made the tree useful for strip-mine reclamation sites.

Black locust grows quickly and averages 40-70 feet tall at maturity. It is often planted as a source of firewood, not only because of its fast growth but because the wood burns very hot. Although the tree does not tolerate shade or extreme cold, it grows well in a variety of moisture, fertility, and slope conditions.

Although it is considered a major honey plant in the eastern U.S., the black locust does not always produce a crop of honey. Nectar flow is very dependent on local weather conditions and some years the flowers yield little or no nectar at all. Some areas of the country report good crops once in every five years, but the frequency varies with the location.

Even when the flow is good, the flowering period is short. The flowers, which bloom in long, white racemes, open sometime between April and June for about ten days. During the rest of the year the trees are excellent habitat for invertebrates, birds, bats and other small mammals.

Nancy, a reader from Shady Grove Farm in Kentucky, has been enticing me with delectable descriptions of her current black locust flow. Below is a photo she sent of a tree in full bloom.

A final note: The black locust should not be confused with the honey locust, Gleditsia triacanthos. Ironically, the honey locust produces very little—if any—honey. The tree was nicknamed “honey locust” because of the sweet pulp which was used for food by some of the North American tribes.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Black locust tree at Shady Grove Farm, Kentucky.
Black locust tree at Shady Grove Farm, Kentucky.

Is tree honey slow to granulate?

Recently, someone mentioned that honey from trees is much slower to granulate than honey from other sources. I had never heard this before and it intrigued me. I was fascinated because my own honey never granulates—at least I’ve never seen it granulate—and I have some that is over seven years old. I know my honey comes largely from tree nectar, but I never made the connection.

Honey granulates when the nectar is high in glucose and low in fructose. The more fructose the nectar contains, the less likely the honey is to granulate. I wondered if tree nectar naturally has more fructose. So I decided to informally research this claim to see how true it is.

What I found is kind of a mess. Nearly everyone agrees on the granulation rate of certain species. For example, many folks assert that honey from tupelo, black locust, gallberry, black sage, sourwood, avocado, and heather hardly ever granulates. This is true. On the other hand, honey from aster, clover, oilseed rape, alfalfa, cotton, blueberry, mangrove, and star thistle granulates quickly.

Most on the “never granulates” list are trees, and most on the “quick to granulate” list are not. But the gray areas are immense. I would say gallberry, black sage, and heather are shrubs—not exactly trees. But so are blueberry and cranberry. A mangrove can be a tree or a shrub. So although trees and shrubs seem to have many characteristics in common, nectar composition is not one of them.

Even more confusing: I found raspberry, cranberry, blackberry, sunflower, and fireweed on both “quick to granulate” and “slow to granulate” lists. The different experience by different people is probably the result of the nectar being mixed with other nectars in their local area—something which can give the honey very different characteristics. A pure sample would probably result in a different experience. For example, given it is in the aster family, I would imagine that pure sunflower honey would be very quick to granulate.

Others on the “slow to granulate” list were yellow box (bush), borage (herb), milkweed (herb) and grape (woody vine). On the “quick to granulate” list were orange blossom (tree), dandelion (herb), mesquite (shrub ), apple (tree), blue curl (evergreen herb), and rosemary (woody perennial). My own non-granulating honey comes mostly from maple, bitter cherry, cascara, American holly, salal, snowberry, and blackberry—which are trees, shrubs, and woody vines.

It’s hard to conclude much from this brief summary, but I would say that if your honey comes chiefly from trees you have a better chance of getting slow-to-granulate honey than if it comes mostly from annuals, herbaceous perennials, or vines. But once again, nature has proven she doesn’t believe in absolutes.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Tupelo trees in Arkansas. Flickr photo by Linda Tanner.
Tupelo trees in Arkansas. Flickr photo by Linda Tanner.

One for the road

A number of years ago my daughter and I went on a pie trip. I had just read American Pie: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America’s Back Roads by Pascale Le Draoulec, then I sent it to my daughter who also read it. At the same instant we knew what we would do.

It just so happened that she was getting ready to move from Louisiana to Washington, and I was going to fly out to meet her and help drive her car (and stuff) back here. I had always wanted to visit the southeast—not just fly over it—and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity. We planned to take the long route home, visit the rural south, and eat pie at every opportunity.

It turned out to be one of the best trips of my life, even though it was totally cramped and highly caloric. Once all her stuff was packed in the car, along with sleeping bags, tent, and other camping gear, I had a little pocket of space in the front seat where I just barely fit if I didn’t move (or eat) too much. To save money we planned to camp every second night, so all the camping gear was a necessary inconvenience that allowed us to spend more days on the road.

We ate pie at virtually every meal. We each ordered different kinds and split them so we could sample as many as possible. Sometimes we ordered additional pieces “to go” and stuffed them in the glove box for later—or for breakfast the next morning. (Glove box pie is something you learn about in the book along with dumpster pie, which is self-explanatory.) I had pieces of pie wedged in the cup holders, balanced atop my camera bag, secured in folds of the tent, and tucked under the seat. Chocolate pies, berry pies, cream pies, caramel pies, crumb pies, nut pies, and awful pies. You name it, we tried it. We’d sit in our sleeping bags on frosty mornings and tuck into the decadent slices, dissing a few, inhaling some, making notes.

I’d all but forgotten about this hedonistic trip until I started writing about honey varieties last year. Now I’ve got this recurring thought: I’ve got to take a honey trip. When I realized how site-specific so many honey varieties are, I began to think that driving around the country to collect them from their source would be the ideal trip. Not only could you collect honey, but you could talk to beekeepers, see the local flora, take photos, and get a true feel for the honey’s origin.

In decades gone by you would frequently see hand-lettered signs along the road advertising “Honey for Sale.” Many of these places had self-serve stands where you dropped your money in a tin can and selected your jar of honey. Some sold vegetables as well. Some sold eggs. Those tiny venders are not so common any more, but I’m sure I could find local honey if I put my mind to it and stayed on America’s back roads.

The honey trip is coalescing in the back of mind. What an ideal thing for a blogger to do: all that tasting, visiting, and writing dispatches “on location.” Hmm. Sounds like heaven. Anyone up for a trip?

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Honey for Sale. Flickr photo by Selena N. B. H.
Honey for Sale. Flickr photo by Selena N. B. H.

Carrot honey . . . really!

Carrot honey is indeed unusual—unusual because domesticated carrots, Daucus carota, are a biennial crop that develop their famous taproots during the first summer of growth. When you want to grow a carrot, you buy a seed, plant it, harvest the carrot two or three months later, and never see a carrot flower. So how do you get carrot honey?

To get carrot honey you have to find a seed grower—a farmer who grows carrots for the express purpose of harvesting their seeds at the end of the plant’s second year of life. And what better place to find a seed farmer than in Oregon?

Oregon is famous for seed production. The Willamette Valley produces most of the grass seed grown in the United States, as well as seeds for many vegetables and herbs. Other parts of Oregon also grow seed, and the carrot honey I tasted came from Madras, an agricultural community in central Oregon. I’m told that carrot seed is not grown in the Willamette Valley because the crop tends to out-cross freely with wild carrot (Queen Anne’s Lace), a plant that is plentiful in that local area.

Although carrots are readily pollinated by wild insects including bees, wasps, and various flies, vast acreages of carrot flowers need the help of honey bees or mason bees to get a reliable seed set. The bonus for the beekeeper is a crop of rare honey.

Carrot honey has a dark amber color with an aroma reminiscent of chocolate. The taste is strong with a bite to it—a sharp spike in an otherwise earthy, caramel flavor. I also detected a “grassy” aftertaste, not quite like foraging on a meadow, but something close to that. This honey would be intriguing in any recipe where you want the taste of the honey to shine through. It would also complement a balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing. But even if you prefer your honey straight up, don’t miss this one; it is a different experience and a must-try for your life list.

Since I was tasting while writing, I’m now seriously stuck to the keyboard—a sweet occupational hazard. While I clean up this mess you should consider giving carrot honey a try. My sample came from Flying Bee Ranch in Salem, Oregon.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite.com

The wild carrot is closely related to the cultivated one. Photo by Vera Buhl.
The wild carrot is closely related to the cultivated one. Photo by Vera Buhl.