Pearlescent honey






Thanks, Robert!


Iridescent honey. © Robert Lunsford.
It seems like magic. © Robert Lunsford.

Is my honey safe to eat?

Is it safe to eat honey from a hive with mites?

Is it safe to eat honey after my bees absconded?

Is the honey from a dead hive safe to eat?











I would shrug, trying to imagine something worse.



“Of course!” he said. “That’s why were pressing them for cider!”




What lurks within?

Meadowfoam honey?





Stinky honey

“Help! My bees need a bath!”

“My honey stinks.”

“There’s a foul smell coming from my hive entrance.”

“I have reeky bees.”

“My bees are collecting rancid nectar.”

“My hive smells like my husband’s gym locker.”

Every autumn a large number of beekeepers report stinky honey. The source of the smell is nectar, most probably from plants in the aster family, including goldenrod and small daisy-like flowers that grow in clusters.

When your bees start to dry this nectar into honey the smell can be overwhelming and somewhat startling. It’s just not the odor you expect from your sweet bees.

Although goldenrod, dandelion, and aster honeys are often not favorites, they aren’t terrible, and they taste nothing like the odor they give off. Nevertheless, many beekeepers prefer to let the bees keep the aster honey for themselves.

This actually works quite well since asters are largely fall-flowing plants. Beekeepers can harvest in early fall and then let the bees keep the fall honey for overwintering.

Some beekeepers fear AFB when they smell aster nectar, but the odors are quite different. Aster nectar has been described as musty, musky, funky, rank, moldy, sour, and rancid. AFB has more of a dead animal smell . . . think rotting meat or fly-riddled carcass on the side of the road.

If you are uncertain, look at your capped brood. If your brood is healthy-looking you are probably smelling aster honey. If you see shrunken brood caps, discoloration, holes in the caps, and the brood frames smell like death, then you need to test for AFB.


Asters by photofarmer
Many plants in the Asteraceae family produce odoriferous honey. Flickr photo by photofarmer.

How long does it take bees to change sugar syrup to honey?

A really, really long time. In fact, it ain’t gonna happen. Not ever. Sugar syrup is made from table sugar, sucrose, which is a disaccharide of fructose and glucose. Honey is made from the nectar of flowers. Bees are clever, but not clever enough to make honey from plain old sucrose.

Honey has many things in it—all derived from the plants which produced the nectar. These components include other sugars as well as trace amounts of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, antioxidants, and flavorful compounds. It is all these optional extras that give honey its flavor, aroma, and color.

Bees will collect sugar syrup, dehydrate it, and store it as if it were nectar. What they end up with, however, is dehydrated and capped sugar syrup—not honey.