Identifying Honey Types

[bassman1977]

Aside from taste and an awareness of what is blooming, how can one ID honey types?  I robbed two frames of capped honey this weekend. Nice clear stuff with fantastic flavor. There's not a whole lot blooming right now as far as wild flowers and I am assuming that this is a maple honey or some other tree.  I read somewhere you can look under a microscope as to what the pollen looks like but I don't have a microscope nor do I intend to buy one or know others with one.  Is it common practice for labs to do this if a sample is sent in?

[Bennettoid]

Are you sure its not from last fall?

[tillie]

The only way to be sure what is in the honey is to engage the services of a palynologist - who studies the pollen grains in the honey - this is best done with an electronic microscope but a regular microscope can be used as well.  Dr. Paul Arnold at Young Harris College in Young Harris, GA does this.  He has developed his own key of photos of pollen grains.  He wishes, however, that he had an electron microscope for better ID of the plants.

Linda T in Atlanta

[bassman1977]

Are you sure its not from last fall?

Definatley not.  Our fall flow is primarily Goldenrod and very easy to distinguish just by the smell and color compared to what I pulled on Saturday.

Thanks Tillie, I'll check into the palynologist option.  I also emailed MaryAnn Frazier at the Penn State Extention to see what she had to say.  I'll follow up if I hear back.

[tillie]

Last year because of the drought in north Georgia most of the honey was principally mountain laurel (that honey makes people sick - a poison honey, if you will). 

So most of the north Georgia beekeepers had Dr. Arnold or someone else analyze their honey to make sure that the honey contained only a small amount of the mountain laurel - usually there is some mountain laurel in our mountain honey but it is predominated by sourwood, blackberry and other flowering plants.  With the drought most of them had poor or no bloom. 

The commercial beekeepers in N Georgia had to have their honey analyzed to make sure it was safe to sell.

Linda T in Atlanta

[bassman1977]

Last year because of the drought in north Georgia most of the honey was principally mountain laurel (that honey makes people sick - a poison honey, if you will). 

Good to know.  The Laurel Highlands (closer to where my dad lives) has a lot of Mountain Laurel (hence the name).  If memory serves, they are apart of the Appalachian Mountain range which start from GA and into Canada.  I'd bet there's Mountain Laurel all through that range.