Best Honey Flowers & Best Monofloral Honey
Monofloral honey - where beekeeping and artistry meet.
Flowers are many, but not all are made equal. The superior medicinal properties of some flowers make them especially important in medicine and beekeeping for honey production. Let’s explore and analyze what are the best flowers for honey production, and why.
How do bees choose flowers?
You may be surprised to hear this, but bees do not randomly choose the flowers to harvest. Although sugars are indeed the main components of the flower nectar across species, there is much to it than sugary water.
Nectar contains a diverse range of other phytochemicals - amino acids, phenolic acids, polyphenols, ions, and numerous other compounds. The content and diversity of these chemicals vary across flowers.
Humankind knew about the medicinal properties of different flowers since ancient times. However, we were not the only ones. Many noticed that when you offer bees a choice, they will often pick to feed on known medicinal plants instead of others.
The phenomenon is a product of the co-evolution of flowers and bees. Since bees and other pollinators are essential for the flowering plant’s reproduction, flowers compete to attract the most pollinators. Besides color, fragrance, and sugar, another way to attract pollinators’ attention is the content of antibacterial, antifungal, and other medicinal substances.
Honey bees store the honey for a long time and have numerous hives plagued by diseases and parasites, so they benefit significantly from these compounds. That is why they will actively seek out flowers that help their colony stay healthy and prosper.
Through harvesting honey, humans have also found a way to benefit this millennia-long alliance between bees and melliferous plants.
One way to study the properties of a particular flower species is to analyze honey made from it - especially if it is monofloral.
What is а Monofloral Honey?
Monofloral honey is made up predominantly from one species of flower. Since you can’t teach
or tell the bees to go exclusively after a specific type of flower, making monofloral honey is a state-of-the-art affair.
The beekeepers resort to different techniques to ensure the bees will gather pollen and nectar mostly from one plant species. These include tracking the climatic conditions, following closely on blooming time dates, timing the harvesting of honey, and pastoral beekeeping.
The complexity of production is precisely the reason why monofloral honey is more expensive than polyfloral kinds.
Are you wondering what is the best flower for honey making? To find out, let’s look at the properties of monofloral honey from a particular flower type.
Then, what is the best monofloral honey? Read on to find out both.
Best Flowers For Honey Making and Best Monofloral Honey
Let’s look at the most praised honey flowers and honey types.
Manuka Flower & Honey
When the first western beehives embarked on a long epic journey to New Zealand in the 19th century, neither bees nor humans knew what unique flower was for them in their new homeland.
The flower of the manuka bush (Leptospermum scoparium) turned out to be one of the most valuable melliferous flowers. The novel kinship between European honeybees and New Zealand’s native blossoms created the now-famous Manuka honey.
There are many monofloral manuka honey benefits regarding both internal and external use. Manuka honey has strong antibacterial properties that have been confirmed in numerous studies. Besides that, it is an antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant. The taste of manuka is specific, earthy, and slightly bitter, while the texture is very viscous.
However, is monofloral manuka honey better than the others? The truth is that there is not a single best melliferous flower or monofloral honey - each has different properties, which you may prefer for one reason or another.
Sidr Flower & Honey
Honey from the sacred Sidr tree flowers can be dubbed the Manuka of the Middle East - although its use has a much longer tradition.
Equally powerful as antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant, Sidr flower honey has a pleasant, rich aroma. There are only a handful of places on Earth that host the Sidr tree for honey production, of which Yemen is the most widely known, but not the only one.
Black Seed Flower & Honey
The seed of Nigella sativa is probably one of the most potent items in phytopharmacy - its remarkable properties have even been praised by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), who said that black seed is a “Cure for all except death.”
However, the flower of black cumin has been a bit out of focus - though it has a lot to offer, with a little help from bees.
Monofloral black seed honey is not a seed infusion, but pure honey made from the black seed flower’s nectar. By consuming this antioxidant-packed honey, you avoid the bitter taste of black seed while experiencing the benefits of many black seed compounds collected through the nectar. Like Sidr, this rare honey can be produced only in a few places in the world.
At Mujeza, we offer all of these exquisite types of monofloral honey for sale - Manuka Honey, Mountain Sidr Honey, and even the Black Seed Honey.
All our products are tested for quality and authenticity and packed raw, unfiltered, and unmodified - for your pleasure and health.