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In my last article, I rejoiced at the great crop of honey produced during the summer of 2018. It was one not to be forgotten the length and breadth of the country.
In the meantime, we have had the ling heather crop, which was disappointing, but we are grateful for what we got. The ling was very patchy and appeared burnt looking between swathes of nice blooms. This was probably due to the lack of moisture following the very prolonged dry summer.
The end of August was warm and humid, which suited the production of nectar from this plant. Bees collected a reasonable amount of it, but failed to fully seal the honey in the frames, leaving some of the lower cells open. This can be a common problem with heather honey.
When cutting this honey out for cut-comb honey, there is quite a lot that is unsuitable for packing for sale because it is not sealed. Bees must seal honey in the cells of the honeycomb, once ripened, by placing a wax capping over it. Unsealed honey, being used for comb or pressing, is likely to ferment due to the absorption of moisture, providing ideal conditions for yeasts to turn it into alcohol.
Fermenting honey has a very strong flavour. Some beekeepers use honey to make the alcoholic drink called mead. There are many recipes for doing this, catering for many tastes. Buckfast Abbey was very good at producing mead.
Many beekeepers take a few hives of bees to the heather every year in the hope of getting some of this prized honey. Getting a good crop of heather honey requires honed skills on the part of the beekeeper, and a hive packed with bees headed by a current year’s queen. However, all this is to no avail if the weather does not cooperate or, as in this year, the heather bloom is patchy.
Given the results of research by Saorla Kavanagh in DCU into the benefits of ling honey being comparable to or better than manuka honey, having a plant such as ling heather (Calluna vulgaris) growing on the hills around the country is surely a great boost to beekeepers. Being able to compete with manuka honey gives us great pride. Capitalising on this crop will fail as long as swathes of heather are allowed to get woody and outgrow their productive life. Production by beekeepers will require careful attention to isolating ling honey to ensure it is pure. Perhaps, like manuka honey, heather honey may require a qualifying mark to ensure it is what it says on the tin. Manuka honey carries one of two marks, UMF (unique manuka factor) or MGO (methylglyoxal), which ensure it is authentic.
Those of us who supplied honey samples for the research should be proud of playing our part. Congratulations to Saorla and her associates for their work.
The ivy is about to bloom as I write and should the weather oblige, hopefully bees will collect a good crop of nectar from it, producing another excellent honey. CL
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