Metcalfa honeydew honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

dried fig, molasses, warm wood

Flavour

fig, dried fruit, malt, light mineral

Finish

Medium and malty.

Flavour character

• Floral and fruity — fruity
• Warm and cooked — malty, molasses and treacle
• Earthy and mineral — mineral and saline

Colour, texture and crystallisation

Colour

1. Water white0–8 mm
2. Extra white8–17 mm
3. White17–34 mm
4. Extra light amber34–50 mm
5. Light amber50–85 mm
6. Amber85–114 mm — this honey
7. Dark amber114+ mm — this honey

Dark amber to brown, sometimes with a greenish cast.

Texture

Thick but pourable; Runny

Crystallisation

Very slow, step 1 of 5, from very slow to very fast

Very slow — often still liquid after a year or more.

Very slow, in common with honeydew honeys generally — low glucose and a high oligosaccharide content both suppress crystallisation.

Typical composition

Moisture

15–18.5% (typically 16.5%)

Fructose

30–37% (typically 33%)

Glucose

18.8–31% (typically 23.9%)

pH

4.2–5.7 (typically 5)

Electrical conductivity

1.21–2.17 mS/cm (typically 1.69 mS/cm)

These are typical ranges assembled across published work, not measurements of a specific honey.

What these mean: the sugars and the ratio · moisture · conductivity · how each is measured

The insects behind it

Honeydew honey has three parties: the tree whose sap is the raw material, the sap-feeding insect that excretes the surplus as honeydew, and the bee that collects it. These are the insects documented for this honey, and how each link is known.

• Metcalfa pruinosa — citrus flatid planthopper

  Planthopper (Flatidae) on a very wide range of trees, shrubs and crops · Italy, Slovenia, France, Türkiye · Named in a reference description

  The only honeydew honey the European reference descriptions keep separate from the pooled honeydew class, because its chemistry is distinct: the highest conductivity of any type described, acidity that can exceed the general legal limit, and a high dextrin content.

Checked 2026-09-29 against: Main European unifloral honeys: descriptive sheets (2004); Honeydew producing insects in some forests of Turkey and their potential to produce of honeydew honey (2020). Where honeydew comes from.

What laboratories and tasting panels measured

Where it comes from

Floral source

Honeydew excreted by Metcalfa pruinosa, a North American planthopper feeding on a very wide range of trees and shrubs — including grapevine, hazel, ash, robinia and many garden plants.

Origins

Italy principally, and increasingly Slovenia, Croatia, France, Spain and Hungary as the insect has spread.

Origin pages

• Croatia
• Slovenia
• The Balkans

Resolved from both directions — origins this honey names, and origins that name it.

Typical harvest

July to September (northern hemisphere)

Late summer, and the timing depends on planthopper populations rather than on any flowering.

A typical window for the honey type, HoneyHQ synthesis — not a calendar for any one place.

The bees

Honey bees collect the honeydew from leaves and stems. Because Metcalfa feeds on such a wide range of host plants, the honey is not tied to any one tree, which is unusual for a honeydew and makes it available in landscapes with no forest at all.

Usual processing

Raw, Coarsely strained, Spun (centrifugally extracted)

Yield tracks planthopper populations, which are large in warm years. Because the insect is a pest of vineyards and orchards, insecticide programmes directly affect the crop — an unusually direct conflict.

Sourced periods for this honey

Read from a source for the place named, and kept apart from the typical windows elsewhere on HoneyHQ, which are synthesis. Flowering, nectar flow and harvest are different periods.

• Honeydew flow: Citrus flatid planthopper on a very wide range of trees, shrubs and crops — June–August

  Italy · northern hemisphere · Season words; months derived · Peer-reviewed study

  Summer.

  An introduced planthopper on a very wide range of trees, shrubs and crops.

  Source: Main European unifloral honeys: descriptive sheets. Checked 2026-10-31.

Every sourced period, on the honey atlas

What to do with it

Its low sweetness and fig note make it a natural cheese honey, and it works in baking where a fruitier depth is wanted.

At the tableWith cheeseDrizzlingBakingDesserts

Pairings

• Aged pecorino and parmesanClassic

  The Italian pairing; fig and hard sheep cheese is a combination that predates the honey by centuries.

• Fresh figs and walnuts

  The honey already tastes of figs, which makes this straightforward.

• Panforte and dense fruit cakes

  Dried fruit against dried fruit.

Similar honeys and substitutes

Three different questions with different answers: a honey that tastes alike can behave differently in a recipe, and the same set texture says nothing about flavour. Each list is chosen from the recorded fields that matter to its question — and, where tasting panels or specifications described both honeys, the terms they share — and every suggestion says which, and what will be different. Compare it side by side or build a tasting flight.

History and traditional use

Metcalfa pruinosa was first recorded in Europe near Treviso in 1979, almost certainly arriving with imported plant material. It spread rapidly across Italy and beyond. Within a decade beekeepers had a new honey, which is a rare instance of a biological invasion producing a marketable product rather than only costs.