Palm Honey

[MattyB]

I told the bees, "You can have all the Dypsis, Coccothrinax, Pritchardia, Butia, and Syagrus nectar you want, just remember that when I want a bit O honey.

[QUINNPALMS]

Rad!!

[Pedro 65]

Fantastic, it would taste amazing I bet, I can feel your buzz Pete

[Stevetoad]

Looks good! Now you can ingest the power of the palms.

[_Keith]

Soooo, what does it taste like? Describe please.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Looks great! Palms produce a lot of nectar, should be great honey. The bees love palm influorescences, its by far the greatest bee densities on flowers I've ever seen.

Now as one bee keeper to another, why on earth are you destroying your frames? The point of those is to put them in a spinner to harvest honey without damaging the comb so that the bees don't have to expand energy to fill in new comb. Do your frames not have a base?

[MattyB]

Keith,

It tastes great! It's definitely darker and more rich than citrus honey, but not quite as dark as avocado.

Axel,

We have a few frames marked "NF" no foundation. Like you've mentioned, they have no starter base so the comb is fresh, pure, and tender, and great for eating. We've reserved these few frames for harvesting comb. The honey/comb harvested is very small and only for our personal use so a strong hive like this one will have no problem quickly rebuilding. Our bees are wild caught, so they are africanized, to a certain extent, and much more productive than a purchased European hive.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Keith,

It tastes great! It's definitely darker and more rich than citrus honey, but not quite as dark as avocado.

Axel,

We have a few frames marked "NF" no foundation. Like you've mentioned, they have no starter base so the comb is fresh, pure, and tender. We've reserved these few frames for harvesting comb. The honey/comb harvested is very small and only for our personal use so a strong hive like this one will have no problem quickly rebuilding.

That's a smart way to go about it. I love honeycomb myself, it keeps forever whereas the extracted honey crystallizes much faster and looses flavor/potency. The only bummer is the wax, I don't like to swallow it but it's supposed to be harmless.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

The honey we harvest is a mix of everything out there. Because we are surrounded by rainforest, our honey is super dark and has a rich taste. The bees harvest all sorts of things, passion flowers, daturas, palm inflorescences, citrus, avocado, apples, stone fruit, etc.. I guess I will never know what pure palm honey tastes like from tasting our honey.

[MattyB]

Our honey definitely isn't pure palm honey but it's palmtalk, so hey.

I don't like to swallow the wax either. I just chew it and then spit it into one of my wife's candles.

[Kennybenjamin]

Sweet.......

Maybe you should change your user name to Matty Bee?

[quaman58]

Matty,

Need a 4 frame centrifuge? Have one kicking around from my bee days..

Bret

[Alicehunter2000]

Sweet.......

Maybe you should change your user name to Matty Bee?

[Mike Evans]

That's great Matt. Nothing like raw natural honey w/ palm pollen. I let the local beekeeper keep some of his hives here and I get honey in exchange. When the palm inflorescence comes out, they are covered in bees. Looks like there will be some palm hybrids in the future. I found out that cheap honey I have been buying from the big box stores is most likely corn syrup that they feed to the bees in large commercial farms. Cannot wait to get some of the palm honey.

[_Keith]

I love different honeys. So, far Tupelo and Sourwood are indeed hard to beat, but I try every different one I can get my hands on. I even tested out some Manuka seeds to see if I could grow a small crop to contribute to the honey. I really want to try a hive here, but the entry point is not cheap and with so much agriculture, and agricultural spraying nearby, I am afraid I will go through the trouble and expense only to one wind up with dead bees.

[dalmatiansoap]

Hmm, palms & honey, I have to warn my family ASP! New obsession on the sight

Bravo Matty

[MattyB]

Matty,

Need a 4 frame centrifuge? Have one kicking around from my bee days..

Bret

Dude! Heck yes! I'm pming you right now.

[rprimbs]

Matt, what type of bees do you have? I've been considering experimenting with carniolan instead of the regular italian since I have so many avocados nearby.

[MattyB]

Our bees are wild, so probably a mix of african and italian. They're a little bit aggressive, but we don't mess with them too often so we don't mind.

[Tropicgardener]

Not those African Killer Bees we hear about down here ??

[MattyB]

Yes those.

[Mauna Kea Cloudforest]

Our bees are wild too. Several years ago I felled giant capulin cherries, and subsequently the hive was exposed. The hive literally got cooked in the sun and by Winter the bees were gone. By late March a wild swarm re-populated the hive, and it's been a strong healthy hive ever since. Last year the hive swarmed at least a half dozen times. They are quite aggressive but we leave them alone for the most part.