|
What is Raw Honey?What is the difference between raw honey and other types of honey? This is a very easy question to answer even though all those jars are quite confusing aren't they?.Raw honey is the honey the honey bees make which is still in the hive, packed tightly in the intricate looking honeycombes. It has not yet been touched by the beekeeper; it is still sitting there in the raw waiting for you to dive in and taste! At the National Honey Show in England I witnessed some of the amazing honey wine beekeepers also make from their own raw honey. Certainly makes a change from the grape variety! They like nothing more than extracting the bee honeycomb and drinking the contents straight from it and experiencing the benefits of eating honey! Save Our Honey Bees. When the beekeeper removes it from the bee hives it is full of little bits of pollen which is highly regarded as a super food. Along with all the benefits of raw honey which contains pollen you will discover all the phytonutrients, proteins, antioxidants and vitamins essential to our health. I strongly advocate the benefits associated with eating super foods and recently had an email from Ellen who lives in delightful New England where the famous sage honey is produced. Ellen told me a funny little story (which was not funny to her at the time) about picking a marigold that a bumble bee just happened to be using as an umbrella at the time! She says she received a buzz and a sting.......Ouch! She further referred to paper wasps as thinking that an area of a 20 foot radius around them was considered by them as protected airspace and their sting could be likened to a winged hypodermic needle. She is not wrong! Ellen owns a website (link at bottom of this page) which gives amazing advice on how to achieve peak health with excellent advice about super foods. Other contents in real raw honey contain Propolis, beeswax, bits of cappings which makes it slightly crunchy and most likely a few dead bees who have gorged themselves to death eating it and who can blame them! Please don't worry about this because the beekeeper will strain the honey completely before you get to eat it if you prefer and it has almost always been strained when you buy it from a store. Raw honey varies in taste and colour depending on the plants and flowers the bees have collected their nectar from and can be darker in colour if there is a build up of old Propolis. Propolis is how the honey bees keep their hives spotlessley clean. This is one of the reasons a beekeeper will change their hives or honeycomb frames every three to four years. Purely to keep their honey a lighter colour as this appears to be more popular with consumers although this does not really make any difference to the health benefits of honey or the medical benefits of honey. Bee keeping is a huge business and one that is a passion for a hobbyist who just owns even one hive. Their end product is used frequently to benefit all his loved ones, he knows the true value of eating the benefits of honey :) Commercially produced raw honey can only be labelled as so when low heat and minimum processing has taken place then you can enjoy the benefits of eating honey. Interestingly, researchers who carried out studies in Europe only a few years ago discovered that beekeepers in that area were living very long healthy lives without ever having to see a doctor for health or medical problems. That says an awful lot about the benefits of raw honey. Even though there are many types of honey, people do tend to seek out local raw honey as both prevention and as a cure for their seasonal allergies such as hay fever and respitory diseases. If you, you poor thing are one of these, it would benefit you greatly to buy some if there is a supply near you. If you are lucky enough to have a local farmers market near you this would be an excellent source to seek it out. However, we must use caution here, if you do plan to sell your raw honey you must check out any local rules that apply by contacting your local Health Department and the Department of Agriculture. There are no hard and fast rules and they do tend to vary from area to area. You can also have fun creating your own labels and decorating the jars you will use, of course it goes without saying these must be squeaky clean so pay particular attention to that please. It is always a good idea to offer your customers a taste of your honey first; maybe a few bread sticks for dipping would be a good idea. Honey does after all taste very different depending on where it is produced and peoples tastes also vary a great deal. You will often find that your honey bee produce will vary in flavour from harvest to harvest; again this much depends on the source of nectar collected by the worker bees although they do tend to like the same source each year, whichever is available to them. Perhaps you have heard of Artisanal Honey a form of raw honey where no two years taste the same! 
Because the pollen and nectar collected by the bees has come from your local area it is highly effective at desensitising you against your local pollens which are usually the cause of your hay fever. in the benefits of eating honey! Eat it all year round for best effects and hopefully you will soon stop the sneezing and runny eyes of which millions put up with. But you don't have to! 
If you are able to get yourself some local raw honey, store it in a clean glass container sealed and keep it in a cupboard, not a fridge. However honey does have an excellent shelf life, it never goes off.Increase it in your daily diet and use it for its vast uses of health and medical benefits including to help fight the signs of growing older. The raw honey in this picture is produced by a local raw honey beekeeper. We buy it at our local farm shop and its yummy! If it crystallizes and you prefer it to be runny, no problem, just stand the jar in a bowl of hot water for a while shaking it from time to time and it will return to its normal runny texture. This will not affect its properties at all as long as you don't overheat it. It appears to be the most popular amongst honey lovers for eating and using in honey recipes. It is however available to buy world wide and it really depends on personal choice and taste which of course will vary from area to area. I can vouch for it as being one of my favourite of all the honeys there are. This raw honey is amazing, it has been discovered in ancient Egyptian tombs, buried there for thousands of years and is still edible. I wonder if it still tastes nice.......now that is real raw honey! They would embalm and bury it with their deceased for use in the afterlife. All those years ago they realised the health benefits of honey. This is ancient medicine which is now recognised once again by modern day medical professionals. However, that is not where the honey story started, this as far as we know can be attributed to Preadamatic man who were probably very curious as to this food source they discovered and this is no doubt where our friendship was first bonded with the little honey bees. Lets hope for more of a revival with this wonderful stuff in our diets and continue to discover more of honey uses. Avid honey bee keepers are the healthiest people around, they hardly ever have a need to visit a doctor, they know the real benefits of honey! Together (hmmm, campaign coming up) we must help to stop honey bees disappearing, we need them so much. I'm certainly not suggesting we should all be covered in honey however, there are bits of us that will certainly be medically cured and we'll all be feeling soooo much healthier for using honey and the added benefits of Propolis. Please write to me with your experiences of raw honey and if you are a beekeeper, oh wow,I would love to hear from you.
Back to Benefits of Honey Home Page from Raw Honey
Would you like to read about Honeycombe? Would you like to read about Bee Pollen? Would you like to read about Honeybee Gardens?
Would you like to read about the African Honey Badger Read about some Amazing Honey Benefits
To See Ellens Website Please Click On This Link Would You Like Some Tips on How to Sell Your Honey For Money? Please Click on the Very Bottom Banner on This Page Top of Page Please use the Site Map or alternatively:  Custom Search
|
