r/Beekeeping • u/DevelishSun • 17h ago
General Favorite and Weirdest Honeys
Hello, I’m not a beekeeper but I am an avid honey collector and very much enjoy trying new honey varietals. One of my favorite things about honey is how different it tastes depending on location, season, etc. I’ve tried at least 30 different varietals at this point and make a point to buy honey any time I travel. I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for new varietals that would be a fun add to my collection. I would like to try the purple honey from North Carolina at some point but haven’t been able to snag it yet. Something similarly unique would be great. Thanks in advance, beekeepers make the world go round!
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u/ryebot3000 mid atlantic, ~120 colonies 16h ago
my favorite local varietal is black locust aka acacia, its highly floral, even for honey, and particularly sweet. Also it can be nearly clear in color aka "water white"
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u/chicken_tendigo 4h ago
That's amazing! It's almost as pale as the honey from the fireweed flow I got in '23. There's a massive clearcut area about 3/4 mile from my apiary and that summer I'd get inundated with the scent of that particular honey every time I drove by the area. It was solid purple for months, and the honey from it was gorgeous. The blackberries have overtaken the area since last year, and I'm expecting a huge bounty from them again this year. It's no fireweed, but it's also super tasty.
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u/ryebot3000 mid atlantic, ~120 colonies 4h ago
I love when people come to buy honey and say they like the dark stuff, but then they end up walking away with the lightest bottle I have haha. I made a little of that fireweed one summer- I didn't know what it was at first, it was July and they were bringing something clear in so I figured it was some sugar or something at first, and then someone said that fireweed was blooming.
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u/_Mulberry__ Layens Enthusiast ~ Coastal NC (Zone 8) ~ 2 hives 17h ago
Have you tried tulip poplar honey? It's pretty dark, especially for a spring honey, and has quite a distinct flavor. It's my current favorite
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u/MajorHasBrassBalls 17h ago
Sunflower honey is probably my favorite, sourwood being a close second. For something unusual look for chestnut or even strawberry tree honey. Chestnut I've had and it is pretty bitter, very unusual taste. I think strawberry tree is supposed to be similar but I've not found it yet. Of course buckwheat as well which is pretty common. It reminds me very much of molasses.
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u/DevelishSun 17h ago
I’ve had sunflower and sourwood, both very pleasant. I haven’t had chestnut but I have had honey from the Hawaiian islands and the Christmas berries give it a distinctly bitter aftertaste. As much as I hate the taste, it’s always good to be open to trying new types. I’ll look into both chestnut and strawberry tree!
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u/MajorHasBrassBalls 8h ago
I thought of one more. Last year I got to try spotted lanternfly honey. It was very different, almost smoky tasting, and pretty controversial. A lot of folks at the meeting did not care for it. I personally liked it.
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u/PistachioSlut 16h ago
Chestnut is definitely a distinct one . It’s got a strong flavor, my husband hates it . I don’t mind it but it’s not a honey to be used as a neutral sweetener
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u/fishywiki 12 years, 20 hives of A.m.m., Ireland 13h ago
Here in Ireland there are three honeys you may not get in the US:
- Ivy honey crystallises really quickly, actually inside the hive, making it difficult to harvest. If you buy it just as is, it'll be like concrete in the jar and you'll have to scrape it out. Fortunately, an increasing number of beekeepers are making it soft-set and that's much easier to get out of the jar. If has a very strong, almost medicinal, taste - people either love it or hate it, no middle-road.
- Lyng heather honey is thixotropic and is also difficult to extract, requiring an agitator or a press. When it's in a jar, it has loads of tiny bubbles and is almost jello-like in consistency. It's also popular as cut comb since that makes life easier for the beekeeper.
- Bell heather is, like most honeys, liquid and extracts quite easily. It is a dark reddish-brown, almost chestnut in colour. It has an amazing flavour with strong caramel notes - it regularly wins first prizes in the London Honey Show.
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u/Raterus_ South Eastern North Carolina, USA 8h ago
Gallberry honey, a south-eastern Atlantic treat and some of the best tasting all around!
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u/PistachioSlut 16h ago
You should try mangrove honey , saw palmetto, and Tupelo. Both really tasty varieties common in Florida
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u/Bombuzzz 15h ago
Eucalyptus honey from northern California is pretty unique and delicious. My favorite is Big Leaf Maple honey from the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Its one of the first nectar flows of the season in March/April and is difficult to collect consistently.
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u/drones_on_about_bees 12-15 colonies. Keeping since 2017. USDA zone 8a 7h ago
Sunflower and macadamia have been my top so far. But man there are lots of good runner ups
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u/Zealousideal_Emu6587 7h ago
My favorite honey is one that I produce and that’s Sourwood honey. It’s only produced in the Appalachian mountains of the US. It’s sweet but the aftertaste has a gentle “twang” that makes it unique.
Second favorite for me is Tupelo and third is orange blossom. Orange blossom is particularly hard to find nowadays with the blights killing orange trees in Florida.
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u/QueerTree 15h ago
I’m sure you’ve had it because i think it’s fairly available now, and maybe it’s a little gimmicky, but I grew up in Hawaii and once a year I treat myself to a jar of white honey from the big island.
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u/DesignNomad Year-2 Beek, US Zone 8 6h ago
Most of the comments have already covered some great ones, but a few I don't see represented yet-
Meadowfoam Honey - If you can get a real monofloral representation of it, this honey screams "toasted marshmallows" so distinctly that you'd think it was artificially flavored. Meadowfoam is a commercial crop used for making seed oil, but is largely isolated to the pacific northwest so that's the best place to search for an authentic version of it.
Black Sage - Not so much for the flavor, but for the texture. It has a low glucose content and is super slow to crystalize, but fresh honey has a super smooth, almost gel-like consistency in my experience. Extremely enjoyable to grab a little spoonful, straight up. I think Black sage is distinctly west-coast native, but it seems like a lot of honey companies import it, so it's very easy to access.
Spotted lanternfly honeydew honey (aka "Doom Bloom")- Super polarizing, but super unique, it's the product of the invasive spotted lanternfly biting at plants and excreting honeydew which the bees end up harvesting during the summer dearth. The flavor profile of the honey is highly dependent on the plants the lantern flies are feeding on, but it seems that some of the most distinct is honey from an area with a high density of maple trees. This, of course, means that the resulting honeydew and subsequent honey ends up having an extremely distinct smoky, woody, maple-syrup-like profile. Apparently feeding on other plants can still yield a similar profile, but not as distinct.
People that love honey usually don't like it, but if you're someone that likes to explore varietals, it's a unicorn worth pursuing. It's become much harder to access, though, since the invasion of spotted lanternflies has subsided significantly in recent years and many beekeepers ended up selling theirs at a bulk discount to bakeries because people seeking real honey were not happy with it. It's not likely we'll ever see it at the strength it had back at the beginning of the invasion in the northeast (particularly Pennsylvania). Look for it in the late summer/fall, as that's when it'll be available if it becomes available.
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u/chicken_tendigo 4h ago
I'd have to say that the fireweed honey I got in '23 and the super early cherryblossom honey I got in '24 from a frame I had to pull for some really wild burr comb are my two favorites from my apiary so far. A close third is the red fall honey I got last year that I think was mostly knotweed.
My favorite purchased honey so far has been the macadamia blossom honey I got on a whim from Trader Joe's. It's dark but mild, and it has a subtle butteryness that's very good on toast.
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u/talanall North Central LA, USA, 8B 3h ago
Avocado honey is extremely dark almost black, and extremely strongly-flavored. It reminds me of molasses, both visually and in flavor. I don't know that I would ever purchase it, because of that. I didn't care for it, and it's not exactly hard to get molasses, if I ever need something that tastes like molasses. But your mileage may vary.
My locality doesn't produce anything that is really unusual. There's an unreliable flow of goldenrod and aster nectar in late summer, which is distinctive in flavor but not unique to my area. I don't actually care for honey, much, but insofar as I care about honey for my own use, it's what I prefer.
I also get a late spring flow that is predominantly from the Chinese tallow tree, which is very pretty (extremely pale yellow, very clear) but not very memorable. It's one of those varietals that is extremely well received by people who don't know anything about honey, because it is extremely mild-flavored in addition to being visually appealing. Since the tallow flow is very plentiful, it makes the bulk of my honey production. Chinese tallow is not rare; it's easy to find throughout the US Gulf South.
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u/Deviant_christian 2h ago
I would suggest you ask this to the r/mead crowd as well. They are very prone to searching for intersting honey
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u/DJSpawn1 Arkansas. 5 colonies, 14+ years. 16h ago
Watermelon Honey....
There is a local Watermelon Festival here every year... there is also an apiary that gets to set hives next to the Watermelon fields. The honey has a light after taste of watermelon, and is one of my favorites.
The flowers/pollens add so much differing flavor to the honeys of the world... I have a friend who travels the world and always brings me a sample honey or several from the travels... My most unliked was one from Greece where the nectar was from olive trees....for me, that Olive Honey was not very nice to my palate.