Sugarbag

Definition

Thin, sharply acidic and produced in tiny quantities — around a litre a year from a strong colony. Stored in resin pots rather than wax comb, and compositionally distinct from honey bee honey in moisture, pH and sugar profile. Sugarbag gathering appears in Arnhem Land rock art and is among the longest continuously practised food traditions anywhere.

Honey records that discuss this

• Sugarbag honeySharply tangy and fruity with a resinous edge — often described as lemon-and-caramel, and quite unlike honey bee honey in every respect.

Bee records that discuss this

• Australian stingless beeAustralia's social native bee, kept in boxes by a growing number of hobbyists and used commercially to pollinate macadamia. It builds a brood comb in a rising spiral — a genuinely beautiful structure unlike anything else in the bee world — stores honey in separate resin pots, and produces a tart, medicinal honey that Aboriginal Australians have harvested as sugarbag for many thousands of years.
• Tetragonula beesThe small stingless bees of Asia and Australia, and the genus behind both the Malaysian kelulut industry and Australian sugarbag honey. They are tiny — often three or four millimetres — and they build spiral brood combs and elaborate resin nest entrances that are frequently the easiest way to find them.