Sunflower honey?

[BEE C]

I just finished extracting my honey from the fall flow, and I found two distinct colors.   One is quite dark.  I read that sunflowers will darken honey with even a little bit blended in.  I grew THREE large sunflowers which flowered while this honey was being collected.  Just wondering if others have found this.  I live in a forested area away from an buckwheat, rape seed, or other sources of dark honey that I know of...The bees are around ornamentals mainly now, and wild flowers.  Does anyone happen to know what color passionflower honey looks like?  Joe pye, and passionflower are the other two sources of this honey that I know of.  

[Brian D. Bray]

Alfalfa honey is also dark, more like if you combined both colors.  I like honey.  Due to head injuries received a long time ago (I had to give up beekeeping for a few years) I can neither smell nor taste foods so I am restricted to enjoying food by its texture.  As such I enjoy the thicker honey with about 15-16% water content verses the more normal 18-20% water content.  Color is no barrier.

[ConfedMarine]

What does it taste like? Is the flavor ok? Color should not matter if it taste good.

[bassman1977]

I like the color of the dark honey...kinda looks like motor oil.  I'll have to plant some sunflowers next year.  I wish I lived about 10 miles up the road from where I am now.  There is a guy who has about 5 acres of sunflowers.  I bet that would make for a great harvest.  I should give him a shout and see if I can place a few hives while they are in bloom.

[2-Wheeler]

I've got lot's of sunflowers in my garden and a fair number that grow wild in the area. But my recent honey harvest was still the same color as the earlier harvest (before the sunflowers were blooming).  In some recent years, the local farmers have grown large fields of commercial sunflowers, but this year the closest field is more than 2 miles away.


There were several large fields of alfalfa nearby that were in bloom for the first harvest, and it was not so dark either.
Here is a picture of the honey we got. Both harvests were exactly his color:

[BEE C]

thanks for the replies.  I don't have a clue what this honey came from now...I guess it could be the other ornamentals.  The taste is much stronger than the earlier light honey, I don't know how exactly to describe it.  It does have a stronger smell, and runs not so liquid.  I was just curious, I'd like to be able to plant out nectar sources for different types of honey and extract them in order to have different varieties.  Blueberrry from pollination contracts, blackberry, early fall wildflower light, fall flow mud honey I guess...  :) Thats interesting two wheeler that you don't get much darker honey from sunflowers.  Brian I don't think I have much alfalfa either, our lawn and other local lawns are a lot of white clover, and dandilions.  I seeded our two acres of lawn with white clover this year...anyway thanks for the replies.         steve

[bassman1977]

I seeded our two acres of lawn with white clover this year

You have a picture you can share of this?  I was thinking about doing that to my yard but didn't know if it would ruin it or not.

BTW...that's a cool pic of the sunflowers.  Sure is a lot.

[BEE C]

I don't have a picture of the white clover in bloom, but I don't think it would wreck your lawn.  We have forest four hundred feet behind our house and on each side of the property.  Our lawn is mostly moss and weeds anyway, but in August when it died back from the heat, the white clover was the only thing still green.  It was insignificant patches of white flowers this year, but Its supposed to spread each year and take over.  I have a neighbour who is a lawn nazi, and waters his dear lawn all day in summer (dropping our water table, we are all on wells out here).  We had one of those polite conversations about what pesticides he gets the WEED MAN to spray on the weeds in his lawn, and oh by the way I have beehives, etc.  I haven't seen the WEED MAN truck since then, but he never forgets to say in passing conversation that "those weeds are really taking over there eh", to which i reply that the bees are still foraging those weeds eh".  :twisted: I had a lawn of forget me nots and dandilions in spring and summer, and I'm a believer that those little insignificant weeds are a valuable source of nectar.  The local natives have a medicinal use for many of the "Weeds" and the deer,birds and butterflys love it.  Oh yeah, that and I think mowing the lawn is torture....seriously though I think that the white clover is great because in blends into lawns as its a low grower, and hey its drought resistant and good for bees...

[Rich V]

My hives are surrounded evey year my several hundred acers of Sunflower. The honey is very light in color, and my customers love it's taste.

Rich V.

[ian michael davison]

Hi all

Dark Honey particularly from wooded areas is quite often the product of honeydew or in more basic terms Aphid POO!!!!!!!!!! as well as some secretions from certain trees.

 Still I don't tell the customers and it tastes good to me


Regards Ian

[BEE C]

Ah thats lovely, ahid poo...I think I'll call it mud honey, that might be a tad more appealing. or perhaps I'll tout its medicinal properties, and keep with the sunflower story...

[Jerrymac]

http://www.mielecamerini.it/our_different_types_of_honey.htm

Sunflower Honey -       ‘Miele di Girasole’

 

Sunflower honey is a typical honey from the farms of the region.

 

Colour: yellow.

Flavour: delicate, light and waxy.

Characteristics: crystallizes rapidly and usually in a very compact mass.

Recommended use: table honey that is widely used by companies involved in biscuit and nougat making.

                                 

 
Honeydew Honey - ‘Miele di Melata di bosco’

 

Distinctive honey from uncultivated and forested zones.  It is distinctive from other honeys for the fact that it comes from the sugary secretions of the leaves of some arboreal essence and shrubs that is caused by specific types of aphids (metcalfa pruinosa).

 

Colour: dark with brown tones and highlights.

Flavour:  medium intensity of cooked fruit and of malt.

Characteristics: remains: liquefied for long periods, very dense.

Recommended use: as this is a honey rich in mineral salts it is highly recommended for sports people and is very good on pastries.

[2-Wheeler]

Great info Jerrymac.  It's all about the marketing!  


BEE C wrote:

I just finished extracting my honey from the fall flow, and I found two distinct colors.

So I'm curious, how do you keep the honey separate when extracting? Did both types come from the same supers, and the same bees?  Were the different types confined to different frames?

[BEE C]

Jerry mac that sounds much more appealing than aphid poo, thanks....
2 wheeler, I extract two frames at a time, by scratch the wax cover off and hand cranking in a lil extractor.  I drain out two frames each time, from the extractor.  I noticed the two different colors after scratching the wax capping off.  I kept them separate by using a lot of one gallon buckets.  Lots of work but interesting.  Each hive had dark and light honey.  Some frames had both colors in them, but I uncapped the whole frame and it still came out either dark or light.  Usually there was more of one or the other.

[2-Wheeler]

Okay BEE C, that makes sense now. Thanks for the explanation.

One more newbee question: I'm still puzzled about the whole honey grading system.
http://www.honey.com/downloads/exhoney.pdf

Wouldn't that dark honey have a higher density and also measure a lower moisture content?  Or are two different instruments used to measure, one for optical density (table I) and another for refractive index (table-III)?  

Sorry for the technical question, it must be the engineer in me...

Said differently; you can't rely on coloration as an indication of moisture content?

[Michael Bush]

>you can't rely on coloration as an indication of moisture content?

There is no direct relationship.  The type of nectar has MUCH more effect on the color than the moisture content.