Money from honey? You had better bee-lieve it Move over manuka, our ‘liquid gold’ is just as potent, traceable and cheaper. The problem? It’s really hard to f ind…
People pay up to €25 per jar of manuka honey, which is imported from New Zealand. Yet new research by Trinity and DCU experts shows that even better honey can probably be found just down the road for far less. Irish heather honey – produced here wherever its namesake plant abounds – has just as many powerful antioxidants as manuka. Those antioxidants fight infection, promote healing and stop cancercausing damage to cells.
Alas, while there was plenty of honey in my local supermarket – ranging from just €1.27 a jar up to €25 – of Irish heather honey, there was none.
There’s loads of priceless publicity online proclaiming Irish honey the ‘new manuka’ but all my search yielded were ads for Scottish heather honey.
I didn’t see where I could buy the Irish stuff until I got to page 5 of the Google search and, there it was – Olly’s Farm of Glenasmole in the Dublin mountains.
‘It’s a seasonal product in limited supply. The bees are working on it at the moment and I hope to bring it home from the mountains this weekend,’ said Ollie Nolan, whose honey was part of the recent Trinity/ DCU study.
‘We always knew heather honey had special properties,’ he added.
Mr Nolan will sell his honey for around €10 a jar through his website and some SuperValu stores.
‘I started off with one or two hives about six years ago but now have 70. The demand is incredible.’
As busy as one of his bees, he produces eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt, vegetables fruit, beef, pork and lamb too – while holding down a near full-time job.
But he has been bitten by the beekeeping bug and hopes to do it full time after winning two prizes, one for heather honey at Blas Na hÉireann’s food awards.
He is also in the Federation of Irish Beekeeper Associations (Fibka), whose seals adorn every jar. Beekeeping is thriving in Ireland, despite epidemics that have devastated hive populations here and worldwide.
In fact, the number of beekeepers here has doubled over 10 years to 5,000, according to Fibka president Paul O’Brien.
Yet, even then, they can supply only 7-8% of the market.
‘This year has been very good for honey but it’s an exception. Most producers are also amateur. The average beekeeper has 10 hives,’ Mr O’Brien said.
Over 90% of the stuff we spread on our toast is imported from an international market that, unlike honey, is far from transparent and golden-hued. It is a murky business. A new documentary series on Netflix called Rotten claims that global honey production is rising many times faster than the number of bees capable of producing it. The only explanation is adulteration with sugary syrups – or harvesting unripe honey, which is really sugar. ‘Consumers are eating a product that is sometimes not even honey. They are being ripped off. It’s very difficult at this time to identify,’ said Mr O’Brien.
EU honey products are strictly tested but the main testing laboratory in Germany admitted in a
Rotten interview that the ‘honey launderers’, like athletics dopers, are often one step ahead.
SO WHAT CAN WE DO?
Read the labels. A pure EU honey is better than a ‘blended’ EU and nonEU product’, which may be 1% Slovakian and 99% from God knows where. Even better, buy from small local producers.
Long-standing local brands deserve trust, said Philip McCabe, president of world beekeeping body Apimondia.
‘We’re lucky in Ireland to have
quality packers. They carry out stringent tests and know their suppliers, for 30-40 years in some cases,’ he said. Be wary of firms you’ve never heard of offering very cheap honey.
Also be prepared to pay more. The bee is probably the hardestworking creature of all. Yet it can produce just a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.
DO THE MATHS
If you want top-quality local honey from a beekeeper who personally carries his hives up the mountains to infuse it with the health-promoting qualities of heather, you’re probably going to have spend more than €1.27 a jar.