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Golden Rod honey

4K views 25 replies 16 participants last post by  kelly 
#1 ·
I got some Golden Rod honey off my first year hives. I was pretty excited to get a little honey this year.... until I tasted it. Defnitely a sour taste to it. Is that usual description of GR honey flavor?
 
#2 ·
I believe most people leave that for the bees or consider it a baking honey.

I've never pulled/tried it. I usually pull my honey in July and let the bees keep whatever they have for a fall flow. I don't have an exciting fall flow here and usually end up feeding some.
 
#5 ·
I was afraid my first year GR honey was going to be sour to or not the best also, but its as good or better than any other honey I have had , can't detect any off taste at all , maybe Ace is on to something , I'm not that far from him .I think there are a couple different kinds of GR.I could smell it at the hives when the flow was on but I didn't think it smelled like gym socks like some have suggested , I detected a nice honey smell coming from the hives.Sorry to hear its sour , hope you get a good spring flow !!
 
#7 ·
There was another thread about golden rod, and I believe it came out that there are indeed different kinds of golden rod, the more southern species having bad taste not associated with the more northern ones. Never heard of anyone, locally, tell bad things about golden rod honey. The one I made and the one I bought locally both tasted pretty good to me, somewhat like dandelion honey.
 
#6 ·
Maybe something else contributed to the sourness? This was my bees first year so I was just thrilled that I got some honey in the supers. But as I posted in another post I am looking for ways to get that honey into the brood box as one hive is all of sudden feeling a little light. So I don't mind giving it back to them.
 
#12 ·
There are something like 20 different species of golden rod that are found in Ohio. So, for the US as a whole there probably are something like 40 different species. Of those found in Ohio only a few yield significant nectar. Many produce no nectar at all. I do think my bees work most of them for pollen. Even the little puny woods golden rod attracts bees for the pollen.

I love golden rod honey. It has a slight butterscotch taste to it and is only mildly acidic. It does crystallize fast. I can tell the first day my bees work golden rod, generally about August 25, by a faint odor around the hives. A couple of weeks later when the flow is heavy I can smell the hives a couple of hundred feet down wind if the weather is sunny and mid 70s or warmer causing a great flow. The local species of golden rod give the hives a distinct strong butterscotch odor. I have had numerous people smell the hives when the flow was on and every one of them thought it smelled great, just like butterscotch candy.

Pure golden rod is fairly light in color. It is darker then clover but no place close to as dark as Tulip Poplar. But, about mid September and well into October I also have a good aster bloom. So aster is nearly always mixed in with the golden rod. Aster tastes a bit more intense than golden rod but much the same flavor near as I can tell. That makes sense as golden rod and asters are closely related. It is a fair hunk darker than golden rod. This year my bees only had a few decent days to work the aster so my fall honey was mainly golden rod and is the lightest color golden rod and the mildest flavored golden rod I have ever harvested. I prefer the stuff with a bit more aster to give it more flavor personally.

It seems obvious that some species of golden rod or some growing conditions must change the flavor and odor rather dramatically.
 
#16 ·
There are something like 20 different species of golden rod that are found in Ohio. So, for the US as a whole there probably are something like 40 different species. Of those found in Ohio only a few yield significant nectar. Many produce no nectar at all. I do think my bees work most of them for pollen. Even the little puny woods golden rod attracts bees for the pollen.

The Pacific North West has 11 species with some of these having multiple sub-species. We have two species on our place. Some clones are well used by honey bees, and others never have a honey bee on them while being covered be solitary bees.
Dave
 
#15 ·
I've got a jar of GR honey from around here, and it is... unpleasant.

It both smells and tastes... off. Its still got a honey undertaste to it, but there is definitely an unpleasant sour front note to it. I liken it to a gallon of blinked milk (for those that aren't familiar with our southern terms, blinked milk is milk that has just started to go bad, not enough to spit it back out but enough to make you stop and blink).
 
#18 ·
I had a lousy GR flow this fall and left everything to the bees. Last fall when I had new hives, I took a small amount, about two large mason jars worth. I think this was GR as I didnt see much else blooming. Lightest, sweetest stuff I have tasted. I was hoping for a bunch this fall but it did not happen. I am convinced that local conditions, species, sub species, influence taste of honey. Mine crystalized quick last fall. But.. this summers honey crystalized even quicker. I have many pounds in jars that are solid lumps. Oddly, some jars are not. Different types of honey is my guess.
 
#19 ·
We are pulling honey out of the basement that was last years crop. There is a layer (about 1/8) of honey on the top that is thinner and not crystallized like the honey below. I am wondering if the honey fermented some. It has a little bite. I read that when honey crystallizes moisture comes out of the honey. Edymnion, is any of the GR honey crystallized?
 
#20 ·
> I've lived in the South all my life and I've never heard the term "blinked milk".

I've lived in the South for only 9 years, and wondered about this also. One reference, from a page titled "The Dialect of The Appalachian People":

Many of our people refer to sour milk as blinked milk. This usage goes back at least to the early 1600's when people still believed in witches and the power of the evil eye. One of the meanings of the word blink back in those days was "to glance at;" if you glanced at something, you blinked at it, and thus sour milk came to be called blinked due to the evil machinations of the witch.

http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh30-2.html
Beesource member Cleo Hogan (in the Park City, KY area) sent me some of his goldenrod honey. It was excellent, :thumbsup: but clearly different than clover honey.
 
#26 ·
Funny Acebird I was thinking the exact same thing! Although i'm not absolutely sure its goldenrod, thinking it is because it was the top super we got it from and goldenrod was soo abundant this past early fall. light in color, mildly sweet! Oh yeah I live in upstate NY near VT border!
 
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