Spruce honeydew honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

malt, dark caramel, damp forest, faint resin

Flavour

caramelised malt, a mineral saltiness, dried fruit, woody depth

Finish

Long, dry and warm.

Flavour character

• Warm and cooked — malty, caramel
• Woody and resinous — woody, resinous
• 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 brown, sometimes near-black, with a reddish rather than green cast — the distinction from fir honeydew that experienced buyers use.

On setting: Slow to set; where melezitose is present it can set very hard indeed.

Texture

Thick but pourable; Runny; Crystallised

Crystallisation

Slow, step 2 of 5, from very slow to very fast

Slow — months before it starts to granulate; sets with a coarse crystal.

Low in glucose and rich in oligosaccharides that interfere with crystal formation. The exception is a melezitose-heavy season, when the honey sets solid in the comb before it can be spun — the cement honey that alpine beekeepers dread and occasionally have to soak out frame by frame.

Typical composition

Moisture

14–18% (typically 16%)

Fructose

30–38% (typically 34%)

Glucose

23–31% (typically 27%)

Glucose-to-fructose ratio

0.67–0.88 (typically 0.78)

pH

4.3–5.5 (typically 4.9)

Electrical conductivity

0.9–1.7 mS/cm (typically 1.2 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.

• Cinara piceae — black spruce aphid

  Aphid (Aphididae (Lachninae)) on norway spruce · Germany · Honeydew analysed

  Its honeydew is 48% melezitose, 1% erlose and 11% sucrose by share of sugars (means).

  The most melezitose-rich honeydew measured — nearly half its sugar. This is the insect behind 'cement honey' that crystallises in the comb.

• Cinara pilicornis

  Aphid (Aphididae (Lachninae)) on norway spruce · Germany · Honeydew analysed

  Its honeydew is 36% melezitose, 1% erlose and 30% sucrose by share of sugars (means).

• Physokermes piceae — spruce bud scale

  Soft scale insect (Coccidae) on norway spruce · Germany · Honeydew analysed

  Its honeydew is 13% melezitose, 7% erlose and 35% sucrose by share of sugars (means).

• Physokermes hemicryphus

  Soft scale insect (Coccidae) on norway spruce · Germany · Honeydew analysed

  Its honeydew is 2% melezitose, 9% erlose and 48% sucrose by share of sugars (means).

Checked 2026-09-29 against: Sugar, amino acid and inorganic ion profiling of the honeydew from different hemipteran species feeding on Abies alba and Picea abies (2020). Where honeydew comes from.

Protected versions and what they require

One protected name sells this honey type under a registered specification. Each sets limits a jar must meet to carry the name — they describe that protected honey, not every spruce honeydew honey.

Where it comes from

Floral source

No flower. The sugar begins as phloem sap in Norway spruce, Picea abies, and passes through sap-feeding insects — Cinara aphids and Physokermes scale insects — before bees collect it from needles and bark. Which insect it was decides how much melezitose the honeydew carries, and so whether the honey sets in the comb.

Origins

Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland and Romania, wherever spruce forest is extensive.

Origin pages

• The Black Forest
• Germany
• Poland
• Austria
• Switzerland
• Romania
• Slovenia
• Norway
• The Alps

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

Typical harvest

June to August (northern hemisphere)

Governed by the aphid population cycle rather than by flowering, and consequently unpredictable — a heavy honeydew year happens perhaps twice in five.

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

The bees

Colonies are moved into the forest at short notice when a flow appears. The husbandry problem is the standard honeydew one: high mineral and oligosaccharide content makes poor winter stores for bees confined for months, so the crop must be taken and replaced.

Usual processing

Spun (centrifugally extracted), Coarsely strained, Raw, Pressed

German Waldhonig is one of the largest domestic honey categories in Europe and is overwhelmingly spruce rather than fir, which is worth knowing when a jar carries the generic forest name at a generic price.

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: Black spruce aphid on Norway spruce — May–July

  Baden-Württemberg (sampled stands), Germany · northern hemisphere · Months as stated · Peer-reviewed study

  May to July in the sampled years.

  Honeydew follows the insects' populations, which rise and crash from year to year; a forest can yield nothing in a poor year.

  Source: Sugar, amino acid and inorganic ion profiling of the honeydew from different hemipteran species feeding on Abies alba and Picea abies. Checked 2026-10-31.

• Honeydew flow: Spruce bud scale on Norway spruce — May–July

  Baden-Württemberg (sampled stands), Germany · northern hemisphere · Months as stated · Peer-reviewed study

  May to July in the sampled years.

  Honeydew follows the insects' populations, which rise and crash from year to year; a forest can yield nothing in a poor year.

  Source: Sugar, amino acid and inorganic ion profiling of the honeydew from different hemipteran species feeding on Abies alba and Picea abies. Checked 2026-10-31.

Every sourced period, on the honey atlas

What to do with it

The everyday breakfast honey across large parts of central Europe. Its restrained sweetness is why it can be eaten in quantity where a very sweet honey would cloy.

At the tableSpreadingWith cheeseBakingIn hot drinksGlazing and roasting

Pairings

• Alpine and mountain cheesesClassic

  Two products of the same forest and pasture, and a pairing as old as both.

• Dark rye and pumpernickelClassic

  Malt against malt, neither trying to be sweet.

• Strong coffee

  The honey's roasted depth extends the coffee rather than sweetening away from it.

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.