Description of common types of honey

We know from childhood that honey is a tasty and very healthy delicacy.

Today the market provides us with a huge number of different types of honey.

Among them, unfortunately, come across and fakes.

To make a quality purchase and not to harm your health, it is very important to know what kind of honey it is and what properties it has.

Differences of different types of honey

Bee honey is a sweet, thick product produced by bees. Various characteristics allow you to select many types of honey.

The classification is made according to the following criteria:

• botanical origin;
• geographical origin;
• marketable condition;
• method of obtaining;
• density;
• color and transparency;
• taste and smell.

By botanical origin, honey is floral (natural) and honeydew.

Flower honey bees are produced from the nectar of flowering and out-flowering plants.

Fallen honey produced from honey dew (sweet sticky juice of the stems and leaves of plants) and honeydew (sweet liquid secreted by insects that feed on plant sap).

A typical example of the classification of honey according to geographical origin is the name "Carpathian honey".

According to the method of obtaining honey can be honeycomb (in its natural form) and centrifugal (pumped out).

In terms of thickness (or consistency), honey can be liquid and sown (crystallized).

The color of honey is light and dark, according to this characteristic, you can roughly determine from which nectar was collected: light honey is obtained from linden, acacia, sunflower, dark - from buckwheat and chestnut.

The transparency of honey determines the presence of pollen and crystallization processes. Natural honey is distinguished by its sweetness with different notes: with a characteristic aftertaste, bitterness or closeness. Honey aroma is determined by honey plants.

Honey collected from a single plant exudes a pronounced smell; a diverse aroma is obtained from a whole bunch of plants. All types of honey have similar healing properties. Honey has a wound healing, antibacterial, soothing action, has a positive effect on the cardiovascular, digestive, nervous systems.

Honeycomb Honey

Honeycomb Honey - A very valuable product that comes to our table in its natural packaging - comb, bypassing contact with technological equipment. For the most demanding customers, the cell is a guarantee of quality and protection against fakes. In addition, if the cells of cells are sealed with natural "caps" (wax plates), it means that the honey is fully ripe in them. Honey comb is well preserved and does not crystallize for a long time. Honeycomb honey is much more fragrant, and you can use it together with honeycombs.

From wax, the body receives beneficial fat-soluble biologically active substances, vitamins and natural antibiotics. Wax fatty acids and propolis increase the body's defenses and prevent the development of atherosclerosis.

Propolis has bactericidal, anti-toxic, antiviral, fungicidal and anti-inflammatory effects. Flavonoids, which contain propolis, enhance the effect of vitamin C and reduce the likelihood of thrombus formation.

Wax cleans gums and teeth from plaque, and the propolis contained in it destroys the pathogenic bacteria. In the organs of the digestive system, wax acts as a natural absorbent.

The benefits of daily use of honey are indisputable: it will help protect the body from colds, cope with stress and recuperate in case of hard work.

Monoflora Flower Honey

Honey from only one plant is called monofloric. Such honey in its pure form comes across very rarely, more often a specific plant prevails by 40-60 percent.

Acacia Honey

White acacia honey transparent in liquid form and white - frozen. From yellow acacia turns out light, almost transparent liquid honey. Fragrant acacia honey has a delicate taste and bitterness is not peculiar to it, and in a liquid state due to its high content of fructose, it can be quite a long time (1-2 years). Acacia honey is easily absorbed by the body and can replace sugar and sweets. The product is an important component of diabetic nutrition, for its processing does not require insulin.It does not cause allergic reactions and has a good effect on the digestion of children.

With hypertension, this honey helps reduce blood pressure, a positive effect on the cardiovascular system.

Antiseptic properties of acacia honey are useful for eye diseases: a solution of honey in distilled water is instilled into the eyes; lotions are used for conjunctivitis.

Ointments and solutions with honey are used to treat dermatitis, wounds and ulcers. Traditional medicine advises to simply apply honey on the affected skin.

In industrial cosmetology acacia honey is used in the preparation of creams. At home you can do honey masks. For normal and dry skin, honey is mixed with olive oil, for oily skin - with egg white. After 20 minutes, the mask is washed off with warm water. Washing with water and honey helps the skin to cope with minor imperfections and improve nutrition.

Buckwheat honey

Buckwheat honey is easy to recognize. Its shades are dark (orange, terracotta, brown), and the taste is spicy and pungent, sometimes even with bitterness, from which I have a sore throat. Buckwheat honey crystallizes quickly. Buckwheat honey due to the presence of many vitamins has a tonic effect on the body. It is useful in the period of increased activity of colds, as it helps to improve the immune system and improve the body's defenses.

Buckwheat honey helps to cope with tissue damage: reduces inflammation, promotes healing of wounds. To restore the gastric mucosa for peptic ulcer, it is recommended to drink a glass of boiled water on an empty stomach every day and eat a dessert spoon of buckwheat honey after 15 minutes.

With the use of buckwheat honey prepare vitamin supplements.

To store honey, it is advisable to choose a tight-fitting glass, ceramic, aluminum container or stainless steel utensils. Plastic containers should not have a specific smell.

Chestnut Honey

Rich brown color and bitterness in taste are integral signs of chestnut honey. Often this honey is more expensive. Light horse honey is obtained from horse chestnut, dark honey from chestnut seed. Not everyone likes its specific taste; many prefer the more popular types of honey, but connoisseurs will certainly appreciate the interesting nutty aftertaste and tart flavor. Like other types of honey, chestnut honey has many healing properties.

It is recommended to eat with colds, insomnia, nervous tension. Chestnut honey is a strong natural antibiotic, it will help fight inflammatory processes, strengthen blood vessels, reduce pressure, increase appetite. It has a choleretic effect, stimulates digestion, tones the body.

Chestnut honey should be eaten with care for children and people prone to allergies.

Linden honey

Linden honey is one of the best varieties of honey. It is transparent, light yellow with an amber or greenish tinge (due to falling honeydew), the smell of honey resembles the aroma of lime flowers - sweet and fragrant with hints of mint and camphor. The taste of honey is very pleasant, with a persistent aftertaste and a possible slight bitterness. Grown honey has a bright yellow color and a coarse-grained structure. It candies in 3-4 months after pumping out, gradually losing its transparency and acquiring a thick texture.

Linden honey is recommended for use when a cold begins as a sudorific. External use will assist in solving skin problems: burns, eczema, purulent rashes.

Also this type of honey is useful for the liver and organs of the digestive system (it has a mild laxative effect), it restores strength, strengthens the general condition of the body.

The optimal daily intake of lime honey - 2 tablespoons for adults and 2 teaspoons for children.

Raspberry honey

Bees collect nectar from flowers of a garden or forest raspberry in the first months of summer. The structure of the flower allows them to do this even in rainy weather. Forest raspberry is the most productive honey plant: 70-100 kg of honey is collected from a one-hectare area of ​​honey, and 50 kg from a garden area. Fresh raspberry honey has a golden hue, a pleasant raspberry flavor, soft structure and delicate taste without bitterness. In the process of crystallization, raspberry honey becomes grainy and becomes creamy.

This type of honey is a wonderful immunomodulatory agent and a powerful aid in the treatment of colds and respiratory diseases. Traditional medicine prescribes the use of raspberry honey with warm tea or milk.

For inhalation in a small kettle pour a glass of hot water and add a spoon of honey, you need to breathe in pairs for about half an hour. This procedure can be done for 10 days.

It is useful to eat raspberry honey in the presence of wounds and stomatitis in the mouth, chronic fatigue and neurosis. It will help the body to relax and establish sound sleep. In ancient times, the property of honey to eliminate inflammation was used by women in the treatment of their diseases (ulcers, cysts).

Sunflower honey

Sunflower honey is easy to learn: he is bright yellow, sweet and a little tart in the first seconds.This honey crystallizes very quickly, a white crust often forms on the surface, and after 2-3 weeks liquid honey turns into a thick mass with large clumps. This is due to the fact that 50% of the mass of honey is glucose. Mature solid honey, with yellow or amber crystals, resembles melted butter.

Sunflower honey contains a large set of useful amino acids necessary for protein synthesis, and antioxidants.

Due to the not very attractive appearance, buyers often bypass this type of honey side. In fact, it has many healing properties. Sunflower honey is a natural antidepressant, it also strengthens the walls of blood vessels, reduces swelling, improves liver function. High glucose content contributes to the rhythmic work of the heart.

The combination of sunflower honey and cinnamon is effective for the prevention of arthritis.

Rape Honey

Rape honey is more popular in Europe and America, we have rapeseed is mainly considered as a feed crop for animals. The plant contains essential oils, which give the honey a distinctive aroma.With 1 ha of rapeseed field you can get up to 90 kg of honey. Rape honey is characterized by a light yellow color (white color after crystallization) and a pronounced sharp odor. This honey tastes very sweet, even slightly sugary, as it contains a large amount of glucose and fructose, and leaves a bitter aftertaste. It is practically insoluble in water, it is better not to add it to drinks.

The consistency of rape honey is thick. Honey crystallizes so quickly that it can be candied a day after it has been harvested, and it can’t be pumped out. Therefore, rape honey is often fattened by bees in hives.

At home, rape honey can be stored in a liquid state for up to 3 weeks, so it is better to buy it in small containers and use it immediately. A jar of honey is stored in a cool dark place.

Rape honey is useful for anemia and diseases of the cardiovascular system. Boron contained in it contributes to the restoration of bone tissue and the functioning of the thyroid gland. Honey nourishes the body with energy, which is important for heavy physical exertion. Rape honey is effective in combating cough and perfectly relieves sore throat.

Polyflory flower honey

Polyflory honey produced from the nectar of different melliferous. Honey often receives names from the land from which it was collected: forest, steppe, meadow, mountain.

May honey

May honey - the earliest honey, pumped out in mid-May - early June. This honey has light colors (from white to yellow) and a sweet taste without bitterness. Immediately after pumping, it looks like a sweet, light, almost odorless syrup; it gets its final appearance when it is set for 3-5 months. The aroma of honey in May is a unique bouquet from the smells of various honey plants that bloom in spring: lily of the valley, bird cherry, currant, strawberry, cowberry, cherry, apple, pear, sage, willow.

May honey is the most popular and demanded, it has many medicinal properties, like other types of honey.

The particular advantage of the May honey is that it is low-allergenic and can be safely used in baby food, and the presence of fructose allows it to be eaten by diabetics.

Forest honey

Forest honey is produced by bees from the nectar of flowers of forest trees, shrubs and grassy plants (maple, acacia, willow, chokeberry, broom, bird cherry, hawthorn, blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, marjoram, lily of the valley, thyme). This honey has a slightly bitter tart taste and a very fragrant aroma of herbs. The color of forest honey depends on which plants served as honey plants: it varies from light to dark shades. With long-term storage, honey acquires a heterogeneous structure with small crystals, initially it can have both a liquid and a thick consistency. Beehives for the forest apiary are placed on glades and forest edges.

Forest honey is a very healing product, which brings together the beneficial qualities of many plants. By the number of therapeutic properties and nutrients forest honey is the leader among all types of honey.

It contains a large amount of vitamins (A, B1, B2, B6, C, PP, K, E) and minerals, has a beneficial effect on almost all organ systems, has antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects.

Forest honey helps to increase hemoglobin levels, tones the body and is recommended for insomnia.It is useful for the prevention and treatment of colds: during a period of increased risk, a tasty and useful vitamin supplement to the diet will be a mixture of shredded dried fruit and nuts with honey.

Do not forget that forest honey is high-calorie and often causes allergic reactions in children.

Field honey

This type of honey is very popular. It is based on the nectar of many field herbs: oregano, valerian, celandine, mustard, thyme, shepherd's bag, sage, dog rose, clover, alfalfa, ivan tea, dandelion, chamomile, thyme, chicory, St. John's wort, thistle, nightshade. Taste and medicinal qualities, as well as the appearance of field honey, depend on the prevalence of characteristic plants in the region of honey collection. From one field in different seasons it can turn out different in characteristics honey.The color scheme of such honey is from colorless to yellow-orange and light brown, the taste is sweet with bitterness, the smell is pleasant, herbal.

If the predominant plant is wild rose, honey contains large amounts of vitamins. Sage and chamomile provide honey with anti-inflammatory properties, thyme - expectorant, diuretic and bactericidal, valerian - soothing. Hypericum honey is effective in treating skin abscesses, ulcers, and wounds.

Steppe honey

Steppe honey has absorbed the aroma and beneficial properties of steppe grasses, it is characterized by high nutritional and healing properties. Honey plants for such honey are cultivated (buckwheat, clover, rape, thyme, sweet clover) and wild plants (dandelion, thistle, cornflower, sow thistle, wild radish) plants. Honey has an amber and golden hues, a flowery herbaceous smell and a pleasant tart flavor, quickly crystallizes.

Steppe honey is useful to take in diseases of the liver, respiratory organs and colds. The soothing effect of the steppe honey is effective for nervous disorders, headaches, stress, insomnia.

Honey helps to normalize blood pressure, expand coronary vessels. Recommended for the treatment of gastritis with high acidity Take a glass of warm boiled milk three times a day several hours before meals with a tablespoon of honey.

Mountain honey

Mountain honey is an elite and expensive type of honey collected in ecologically clean mountainous areas (in the foothills, at the foot of the mountains). More than 50 plants can be honey plants for mountain honey: acacia, hawthorn, blackthorn, wild cherry, dog rose, thistle, sage, elecampus, oregano, veronica, melissa, thyme, hawthorn. Mountain honey is polyphlore, so its scent combines aromas of many colors, and astringency and bitterness are felt in taste. The type of honey depends on the region in which it was harvested.The color of mountain honey is light shades of yellow and brown.

This mountain honey is an excellent remedy for colds, diseases of the respiratory tract, eyes, liver, it is useful for the cardiovascular system and the thyroid gland, it calms the nervous system, has antibacterial properties, and is therefore used to treat wounds and burns.

Mountain honey is a powerful immunomodulator. It is also recommended for diabetics.

Fallen honey

In hot weather, when the plants stop producing nectar, the bees collect honeydew and pad. The first is a sweetish liquid, which is excreted by the leaves and shoots of plants, and the second is the product of the activity of insects (aphids, leaf leaves, chertsev) that feed on plant sap.

This fluid contains protein degradation products and other substances of animal origin.

When the source of the paddy are the leaves of coniferous trees (fir, spruce, pine), honey is called coniferous; downcollected from deciduous trees (linden, maple, oak, willow, ash, cherry, plum, apple, willow), it becomes the basis of coniferous honey.

Bees collect the pad in the highlands and in coniferous-deciduous forests. Often honeydew honey contains some part of flower honey, this kind of honey is called mixed. Honeydew honey is not suitable for feeding bees in winter. Too much of the minerals and nitrogenous compounds can lead to the death of the bee family. Honeydew honey is produced in dry summer or late, when most of the plants have faded. It has a viscous, sticky structure, dark brown or orange-yellow (honey from the needles) color and contains many minerals. Such honey has a sweetish taste with notes of bitterness. The aroma of honeydew honey is peculiar, spicy. In water, this type of honey dissolves poorly.

Paddy honey has found application in cosmetology (in the care of problem skin), cooking and traditional medicine (a dietary supplement with a deficiency of minerals, a remedy for colds, diseases of the cardiovascular system, liver and pancreas).

A variety of honey and its properties depend on many factors: on the number of honey plants, the place and conditions of their growth, the collection and storage of the finished product. Honey is a unique product, especially honey made from herbs. Eating honey correctly and moderately, you will be of great benefit to the body.