Frequently asked questions
Q: Why does the honey I bought taste different from the one I had before?
A: We do not mix all our honeys in one big pod to make them all taste the same. Depending on the flowers the bees predominantly visited during the season, depending on the time of the year, the nectar sources will give the honey a different taste. The main flowers visited in spring time, where we have our bees, would be willow, hedgerows like hawthorn and blackthorn and fruit trees. In the summer it’s mainly blackberries, some eucalyptus, sunflower and other summer flowers.
Q: Do you have Rapeseed honey?
A: We try to avoid rape seed at all cost, wherever possible, it’s an unnatural monoculture and there’s potentially a lot of chemicals going into it that are harmful for the bees, and MIGHT even end up in the honey. I lost a lot of bees in rapeseed over the years, so I have to confess I forfeit the potentially good honey harvest in exchange for healthy bees.
Q: How can I tell if honey is fake?
A: You can NOT, despite what the internet is trying to tell you. Only few Laboratories with sophisticated equipment have been able to detect the deliberately formulated forgeries. As with most criminal enterprises the criminals are usually one step ahead.
Up until earlier this year it was believed that about 50% of the honey offered for sale is produced artificially (for example from maize or wheat starch). Estonian scientists recently developed a method to analyse the DNA of honeys.
Investigations in Germany and other European countries then found out that 80% of what we get sold as honey is fake. The beekeeper, testing his own honeys day in day out, might taste the difference, a consumer can taste it’s not as nice as what he bought on the ISLAND recently but it is not possible with any of the on the internet promoted methods to detect fake honey!!
