The books / Forage and the Nectar Flow / chapter 21 of 21
A year of varieties and what each is worth
All chapters
- The two-kilometre circle
- Why six kilometres costs more than it brings
- Three and a half kilos of nectar
- What a flow actually is
- Maple, willow and the first dandelions
- Fruit blossom and hawthorn
- The main flow: black locust and clover
- Linden in July
- The gap in the middle of the year
- Goldenrod and the winter stores flow
- Ivy, the last flow
- Oilseed rape, the flow that sets in the comb
- What makes a jar monofloral
- Putting a super on at the start of a flow
- Pulling it at the end
- Reading a capping percentage
- Eighteen point six percent
- Honey that ferments
- Crystallisation is physics, not spoilage
- Creaming by the Dyce method
- A year of varieties and what each is worth
Clover is the commodity price every other honey is quoted against.
Orange blossom and the orchard honeys carry a slight premium; acacia from the black locust, linden and buckwheat a moderate one; heather a significant one, sold as a heritage product. Rapeseed sits at the baseline and is usually sold pre-set.
At a farmers market that spread is real money:
- plain wildflower and clover go for about 10 to 16 dollars a pound
- a named single-origin honey, 14 to 22
- creamed honey, 12 to 20
- comb honey, 18 to 30
Raw, local and single-origin together carry 20 to 50 percent over blended supermarket honey.