Forest Honey
Lexikon
According to the German Honey Guidelines (Leitsätze), forest honey is a honeydew honey that comes entirely from plants of the forest, whereby park areas in cities are expressly not considered forest.
According to the German Honey Guidelines (Leitsätze), forest honey is a honeydew honey that comes entirely from plants of the forest, whereby park areas in cities are expressly not considered forest. In general usage, forest honey is the common umbrella term for honey that the bees have obtained predominantly from the sugary honeydew of aphids and similar insects on trees, with conifers such as spruce and fir playing a major role in Germany as hosts for these insects.
Typical of forest honey are a strong, robust flavor, a darker color ranging from amber to dark brown, and a particularly high mineral content, which stems from the trace elements contained in the tree's phloem sap present in the honeydew. Chemically this shows up, among other things, in a markedly higher electrical conductivity compared with blossom honey, which is why conductivity also serves as a measurement criterion for distinguishing the two honey types.
For beekeepers, forest honey is highly dependent on the flow, because it only comes about if the honeydew-producing insects multiply in sufficient numbers, which in turn depends on weather and tree health, so there are years with an abundant and years with practically no forest flow at all. In addition, some forest honey, due to its melezitose content, tends to crystallize quickly and hard, up to what is called cement honey, which requires particular care when extracting and bottling.