Mint Flavored, Cough Syrup Tasting Honey

[PFA]

This past saturday I supered several hives. One hive in particular I removed burr comb with capped honey at my upper entrance before placing the next supers for the family to eat. However, this "honey" has a very strong mint flavor (the kids say it tastes like cough syrup). Is this honey or is it something else? It is very light in color like early honey.

This hive was fed Honey-B-Healty sugar syrup in the fall. Did the bees move left over stored syrup up as the hive was expanding instead of consuming the syrup? The hive currently occupies 3 deeps with 4 mediums of capped honey above - I added two more supers this past weekend.. This honey is in the second super. Both the first super and the second super started out with foundation only. I do not know if super #1 has this flavor, but frames 2, 5 & 9 of super #2 taste minty (I went back and stuck my finger in the center of these frames).

Or did my bees rob this honey from someone else's hivs(s) that were fed Honey-B-Healty? There are 5 other hives about 3 miles away, but these are the only hives I am aware of within foraging distance of this location. By the way, this is the first year I have placed hives and will be gathering honey from this location.

Or is this just an early honey that I am not aware of/tastes before? No one in the family likes the flavor (Wife, kids, sister, brother-in-law, mother or uncle). Pretty much anyone who stopped in the house the last few days has tasted it.

Even if it is honey, I have already determined it is being used for winter feed for other hives as I will be swapping mediums around when I harvest.

Thanks for any thoughts or insights.

[Bud Dingler]

chinese honey that has no flavor.

Linden or basswood honey has a minty flavor and around here sells for $10 a pound if pure. The color can be almost white with a slightly green tinge.

Varietal honey separated by floral source has what most packer honey does not have- TASTE!

[PFA]

My family has been using our own honey for 20+ years, although it has/is always late summer and fall honey. We use it in everything from peanut butter and honey sandwiches to replacement of sugar in cooking.

In all these years, I/we have never had honey that tastes like this. But like I said, this is new location to me about 2 hours away from where we have been placing hives in the past.

I would not have a problem bottling and trying to sell some of this honey it I was 100% sure it was honey. That is were the hang-up is for me. I have never had basswood honey...so don't have a gauge to judge this flavor against. The honey is very light, like heavy sugar syrup with a yellow tinge to it. The after taste is the same as eating a fresh mint leaf. It is not spearmint flavor as one of the essential oils in H-B-H is, nor does it smell like H-B-H. But I am still not convinced it is 100% pure honey.

[Michael Palmer]

Mmmm...Basswood honey!

[MapMan]

The after taste is the same as eating a fresh mint leaf. It is not spearmint flavor as one of the essential oils in H-B-H is, nor does it smell like H-B-H. But I am still not convinced it is 100% pure honey.

You definitely have basswood - one of the best spring honeys! The basswood is in full bloom here, the bees packin' it in.

MM

[pcelar]

I had to look in dictionary what is basswood. :confused: It is linden. Linden I know. Linden flowers are medicinal. Linden tea is good. Back home the best wood for building hives is linden because it, as I was told, breaths best. It is very porous. Also linden honey is very valuable. I would like to buy some.

[Beorn]

I was doing a check in to see if I could extract soon. I tasted some of the honey in the burr comb. I was oddly minty, too. I can't wait to see it in the jar. I hope it's as clear as they say.

Jewel weed and goldenrod up next. I'm trying cut comb honey this year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed because I'm doing it with foundationless frames.

[Michael Palmer]

Also linden honey is very valuable. I would like to buy some.

How valuable? :-)

[pcelar]

How valuable? :-)

"Valuable" was used in medicinal sense. In Europe it is considered by many people very valuable. Like sage honey. I would like to buy ~ 60-80 lbs (5 gallon pail). But the shipping cost would probably be prohibitive. Also I like to taste honey before I buy such quantity.

[ScadsOBees]

Linden honey is stronger flavored when fresh too. It will lose some of the medicinal flavor and go to a more minty/fruity flavor. I noticed the cough med flavor mostly when extracting.

I like it, but prefer the later summer honey. The linden flavor to me clashes with a lot of flavors, it isn't as good on toast, tea, etc but I like it plain. I find that other people like the clover/knapweed honey better too.

It does however make very good mead!!

[PFA]

Thanks all!...you have convinced me that I have 100% pure honey. I believe I will now extract these supers first and keep the honey seperate.

$10 per pound?!?...really....$10. If I can sell this honey for that I will definitely be moving more hives to this location next year.

Thanks again to all you responded.

[PFA]

Pcelar: I'll let you know if I end up with a 5gal pail and then some. Maybe we can work something out.

[Michael Palmer]

If I can sell this honey for that I will definitely be moving more hives to this location next year.

Too bad Basswood isn't a very dependable flow. Most years I taste a little bit in the burr comb, but it's not often we get supers full.

[Matt K]

Hey PFA,

Any of this stuff growing arround those hives?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirsium

Matt