Mopane honey
Dark and malty with a savoury mineral depth and a faintly smoky finish — closer to a European forest honeydew than to an African blossom honey.
A honey from the mopane woodlands of southern Africa, and one that is largely honeydew rather than nectar — mopane psyllids feed on the leaves and produce sugary shells known as mopane manna, gathered and eaten by people as well as worked by bees. It is dark, malty and distinctly savoury, and it comes from woodland that supports very little else.
Flavour and aroma
- Aroma
- malt, dry wood, smoke, molasses
- Flavour
- malt, mineral, caramel, faint smoke
- Finish
- Long and savoury.
- Intensity
- Pronounced
- Sweetness
- Moderately sweet
- Bitterness
- Trace
- Acidity
- Low
Colour, texture and crystallisation
- Colour
- Amber (85-114 mm Pfund)Dark amber (over 114 mm Pfund)
Dark amber to brown.
- Texture
- Thick but pourable; In the comb; Runny
- Crystallisation
Slow — months before it starts to granulate
Slower than a nectar honey of comparable colour, reflecting the honeydew contribution.
Typical composition
- Moisture
- 15–20% (typically 17.5%)
- Fructose
- 31–38% (typically 34%)
- Glucose
- 26–33% (typically 29%)
- pH
- 4–5 (typically 4.5)
- Electrical conductivity
- 0.6–1.4 mS/cm (typically 0.95 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
Where it comes from
- Floral source
- Colophospermum mopane, the mopane tree, with the bulk of the resource being honeydew from mopane psyllids feeding on its leaves.
- Origins
- Northern Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, southern Zambia, Angola and the Limpopo valley of South Africa.
- Origin pages
Resolved from both directions — origins this honey names, and origins that name it.
- Harvest
- September to December (southern hemisphere)
The psyllid season in the dry months before the rains.
- The bees
- Worked by African honey bees in bark and log hives. The same psyllid secretions are gathered by people as mopane manna, so the bees are competing with the local human harvest for the resource.
- Usual processing
- Raw, Cut comb, Pressed, Coarsely strained
Mopane woodland is enormous and largely unfarmed, which makes the honey effectively free of agrochemical exposure. Volumes are limited by beekeeping infrastructure rather than by the resource.
What to do with it
Its low sweetness and savoury depth suit cooking better than breakfast.
At the tableGlazing and roastingMarinadesWith cheese
Pairings
- Biltong and dried meat
Salt and savoury honey together.
- Aged hard cheeses
Mineral against salt.
Pairing pages this honey appears on
Selected by this honey’s own recorded intensity, flavour families and uses rather than by anything written above — each page prints the rule that put it there.
Where this honey sits in the catalogue
History and traditional use
Mopane woodland supports one of the most concentrated human food relationships in southern Africa — the caterpillar, the manna and the honey all come from the same tree.
- Mopane manna, the sugary psyllid shells, is gathered and eaten across the region, as are the mopane worms that feed on the same tree.
Traditional use records that people have done something, and for how long. It is not evidence that it works.
Sources
- HoneyHQ editorial synthesis — HEKNO Ltd · HoneyHQ synthesis
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Guides that cover this honey
Tools for choosing and using honey
- Honey finder
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- Flavour selector
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- Honey comparison
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- Honey substitute calculator
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- Storage guide
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