Organic honeycomb that is made by the bees in the jar.
We have a few jars, about 22 of some of Antonio’s raw organic honeycomb. This is fairly unique as far as the bees actually make the honeycomb in the jars. Antonio puts the jars in the hive with a little honey in them. This encourages the bees to build honeycomb, which they make in the jars. Then Antonio seals the honeycomb in the jars.
This is probably the best form of honey. It has all the natural benefits – pollen, wax, propolis, live enzymes (like the one that produces a mild form of the antiseptic hydrogen peroxide), antioxidants and all the naturla minerals and vitamins that occur in honey.
Because of the way that this honeycomb is produced it is very expensive, but unlike most honeycomb that is for sale it is pure. Most honeycomb in the supermarkets is placed in pasteurised honey, usually of a different type than the honey in the comb.
You can buy it here.
Just writing this having visited Ramon. It was very
good of Ramon to wait up for us as we arrived at midnight, having driven
from just north of Madrid where we were delayed by some typical Spanish hospitality….
just couldn’t get away from Antonio. Ramon was expecting us about six in the evening, but he didn\’t complain even
though he had to get up at four the next morning to move some hives onto the lavender in a remote area
about 100 miles from his home.
Ramon had put the rosemary in jars the day before we picked it up.
We shared a glass of wine with him and Begonia, his lovely wife, who has incredibly clear skin.
She puts it down to the rosemary face mask she puts on once a week, which she recommended to me.
Then we were on our way, in a dash to our house in the pyrenees for a night’s sleep (got there at 5am after spending hours talking to Ramon
and Begonia), then the next day a dash to catch the ferry from Dieppe. I must say this rosemary
honey has a wonderful translucent appearance and it is at its peak now.
The fact is that most people like their honey to be runny or at least easy to spread. The big honey producers have caught on to this. It suits them well because before when the honey has been pasteurised it pours much easier into jars and enables them to fill more jars per hour – thus more profit. It also enables them to blend and mix honey from many different sources. If you look at the honey for sale in supermarkets most of it has on the label from more than one country of origin. This is a problem because the honey producer cannot actually say where the honey in a specific jar has come from. In the past honey from China has been proven to have been adulterated with sugar and to have unacceptably high levels of antibiotics. In fact for a while imports of honey from China were banned – then China took to sending honey through other countries, like Vietnam and India.
The main problem with pasteurisation though is that it destroys the natural enzymes in honey. Wikipedia says: Heat-treatment after extraction reduces the moisture level and destroys yeast cells. Heating liquefies crystals in the honey, too. Heat-exposure also results in product deterioration, as it increases the level of hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and reduces enzyme (e.g. diastase) activity. The heat also affects sensory qualities and reduces the freshness. Heat processing can darken the natural honey color (browning), too.
So it destroys the enzymes and the flavour. Cooked honey is also higher in water and lower in peroxide activity than uncooked – one of the enzymes in honey produces a mild form of hydrogen peroxide.
Just got back from Spain. Met Antionio a fourth generation beekeeper who only produces raw organic honey.
The quality is superb and we will be selling some, but not yet via the website. Email me at
info@themagicofspain.com to get details. The varieties are chestnut, oak, heather, rosemary,
thyme, organic honey with nuts, comb honey. For a kilo the price will be £13 and for a quarter kilo
the price will be £4.
I have to say that this is the best honey I have ever tasted.’
There’s a lot of confusion about raw honey and organic honey and most people think organic honey is the
same as raw honey. It’s not and people are missing out on the properties of real natural honey.
I always stop and look at the honey whenever I go into a supermarket or indeed any shop.
And I’m nearly always disappointed not to find any raw honey. There’s lots of organic honey but no
raw honey. In Sainsbury’s I counted about 40 different kinds of honey and only 1 which described itself
as raw. In my local health food shop there was no raw honey. There were maybe ten different kinds of
organic honey. Nearly all were blends of honey from different countries. There was an organic orange
blossom but it was clear.
Now raw honey nearly always sets, although this does depend in part
on the balance of sugars in the honey. Clear runny honey has been boiled. Heating honey above 115
degrees fahrenheit destroys the enzymes, vitamins, antioxidants and the other beneficial compounds.’
There’s a plethora of types of organic honey for sale in the supermarkets and health food stores.
People buying this are clearly under the impression that organic=natural honey. However, this just
isn’t the case. Most organic honey is processed honey. It’s been pasteurised – i.e boiled to something
like 170F so that it’s quicker and easier to get into jars. This speeds up the production process -
more jars filled per hour then more profit for the honey producer. Also, most organic honey has been
ultra filtered. This is a process where honey is pushed through an extremely fine mesh. The process
removes all debris and most of the pollen. It is the pollen that contains the anti oxidants, minerals
and vitamins that are beneficial to health.
Wikipedia define unltrafiltration as follows:
<strong>Ultrafiltered honey</strong>
Honey processed by very fine filtration under high pressure
to remove all extraneous solids and pollen grains. The process typically heats honey to 150-170
°F to more easily pass through the fine filter. Ultrafiltered honey is very clear and has a longer
shelf life, because it crystallizes more slowly due to the high temperatures breaking down any sugar
seed crystals, making it preferred by the supermarket trade. Ultrafiltration eliminates nutritionally
valuable enzymes, such as diastase and invertase
Really the test of good honey is more about
whether it’s raw. It is raw honey that still contains the enzymes and pollens that are beneficial for
our health. If it’s organic as well great but the first check should be whether it’s raw.
My name is Tim and my partner is Karen.
We’ve been going backwards and forwards to the Pyrenees for years and have regularly brought back raw honey that we purchased there. This triggered an interest in honey and a search for good honey.
We discovered Ramon’s honey, which we sell on our website, whilst on holiday in the Spanish Pyrenees and we were knocked
out by the absolutely amazing flavour, neither of us had ever tasted anything like it
Every time we went back to the Pyrenees we returned home with a selection of monfloral honeys: orange blossom honey, lavender honey, thyme
honey, heather honey and rosemary honey typically.
We do sell it now. This raw honey is for people who want to appreciate the superb flavour and real health benefits of unprocessed honey. There’s a lack of good information about honey on the internet. Some of it is unquestioning in extolling the virtues of honey – for example, pointing out the
value of honey as a source of vitamins, whereas in reality there are many other foods that are better sources of vitamins – although it does have a reasonable amount of vitamin C.
An article appeared in The Guardian on July 21st 2004 that outlined the massive global problem with bees being
‘overdosed’ with antibiotics – some of them dangerous to people – and all sorts of methods used by
producers to adulterate honey. A lot of these problems emanated in China and for a while Chinese honey was banned by the EC. Whether this problem has been sorted out we don’t know – but we would
recommend buying honey where each jar can be traced back to a specific source. Most honey sold in the
UK is a blend of different honeys, often from China.
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