Asia honey

How honey is produced here

Hived production runs on both Apis mellifera in commercial apiaries and Apis cerana in traditional wall and log hives, the latter surviving conditions and neglect that would kill introduced stock. Wild harvest from Apis dorsata and Apis laboriosa combs continues across the Himalaya and Southeast Asia, largely by pressing rather than spinning.

Flavour signature

The flavour families that recur across this origin’s honeys, counted from their sensory profiles rather than asserted.

• Caramel · 14
• Fruity · 11
• Floral · 10
• Herbaceous · 8
• Resinous · 6
• Phenolic and medicinal · 6
• Spicy · 6
• Vegetal · 6

Honeys from Asia

• Himalayan cliff honeyAmber · IntenseStrong, dark and complex, with a bitter herbal edge and a slightly astringent finish. Spring harvests are frequently sharper and more bitter than autumn ones.
• Tualang honeyAmber · IntenseSharply sour and dark, with a fermented-fruit tang over a molasses base — genuinely unlike any temperate honey, and an acquired taste.
• Lychee honeyExtra light amber · ModerateDelicately floral with a distinct rose-and-lychee perfume, and a clean sweetness underneath that keeps it from being heavy.
• Longan honeyLight amber · PronouncedIntensely aromatic — caramel, dried tropical fruit and a distinctive musky floral note that is unlike anything in the European catalogue.
• Loquat honeyAmber · PronouncedRich and malty with a distinct almond-marzipan note over dark caramel — one of the more aromatic East Asian honeys and far stronger than its pale-fruited source suggests.
• Tea blossom honeyExtra light amber · ModerateMild and creamy with a distinct faint bitterness and a green vegetal note that is recognisably tea-like — an unusual profile and a divisive one.
• Mikan honeyExtra white · MildDelicate and bright with a pronounced fresh citrus-blossom aroma and a clean acidity — lighter and fresher than Mediterranean orange blossom honey.
• Neem honeyAmber · IntenseDistinctly bitter with a herbal, faintly medicinal character over a restrained sweetness — one of the least conventionally pleasant honeys in the catalogue, and deliberately so.
• Mahua honeyDark amber · IntenseHeavy and molasses-like with a fermented dried-fruit note and a faintly smoky finish — one of the more challenging Indian honeys and among the most distinctive.
• Sidr honeyAmber · IntenseRich, dark and layered — caramel and dried fruit first, then a faintly medicinal bitterness and a long savoury finish. Complex in a way few honeys are.
• Himalayan forest honeyLight amber · ModerateComplex and warm, with a herbal and faintly smoky character reflecting both the flora and the traditional processing — spring honey is lighter and more floral, autumn honey darker and more resinous.
• Tibetan highland honeyAmber · PronouncedDense and strongly herbal with a resinous depth and a faintly smoky finish — a concentrated honey that reflects both a short intense season and traditional processing.
• Kelulut honeyLight amber · PronouncedDistinctly sour and tangy with a fruity, almost fermented character — closer to a sharp fruit syrup than to what most people expect honey to taste like.
• Gelam honeyAmber · PronouncedSharp and aromatic with a distinct medicinal eucalyptus-like lift over a caramelised base — assertive and unmistakably from the myrtle family.
• Altai honeyExtra light amber · ModerateFloral, warm and complex, with a hay-meadow character and a long clean finish. A very good multifloral rather than a striking monofloral.
• Tulsi honeyExtra light amber · PronouncedDistinctly clove-scented over a light caramel body — one of the few herb honeys that genuinely smells of the herb.
• Ajwain honeyExtra light amber · PronouncedAromatic and faintly medicinal, with a clear thyme-and-caraway note over light amber sweetness.
• Moringa honeyExtra light amber · ModerateGreen, peppery and faintly vegetal over a light sweetness — recognisably related to the mustard-oil chemistry running through the whole plant.
• Babul honeyLight amber · ModerateWarm, nutty and full-bodied with a faint tannic dryness. A robust everyday honey rather than a delicate one.
• Tamarind honeyLight amber · ModerateAmber, warm and distinctly tart, with a caramel body and a sour-fruit edge that does echo the tamarind pod.
• Cardamom honeyExtra light amber · PronouncedGenuinely spice-scented — eucalyptol and a sweet resinous lift over pale amber sweetness. One of the clearest spice signatures of any honey.
• Oil-tea camellia honeyWater white · ModeratePale, thin and distinctly bitter, with an astringent tea-like finish. Not a beginner's honey and not really a pleasure honey.
• Pagoda tree honeyExtra white · MildLight, clean and gently floral with a faint green edge — an unassertive honey produced in very large quantities.
• Durian honeyAmber · IntensePungent, savoury and unmistakably related to the fruit — a sulphurous undertone over dark caramel. It divides opinion as sharply as durian itself.
• Rambutan honeyLight amber · ModerateSoft, floral and faintly muscat — closer to lychee honey than to anything temperate, and gentler than most tropical honeys.
• Coconut blossom honeyExtra white · MildLight, clean and mildly waxy with a faint nuttiness. It tastes nothing like coconut, which surprises almost everyone.
• Mangium honeyAmber · PronouncedDark, malty and lightly resinous, with a savoury depth that reads as honeydew rather than as blossom.
• Oil palm honeyLight amber · ModerateVariable by definition. Generally warm and mildly caramel-led, taking its character from whatever grew between and around the palms.

Plants behind these honeys

• LemonCitrus limonExcellent nectar over an unusually long and repeated window, and only a moderate pollen contribution.
• LoquatEriobotrya japonicaAn outstanding winter nectar and pollen source in subtropical climates, and correspondingly valuable.
• TeaCamellia sinensisA good late nectar and pollen source, arriving when the season is otherwise closing.
• Sweet orangeCitrus sinensisA heavy nectar source over a substantial period, and moderate for pollen.
• NeemAzadirachta indicaA good dry-season nectar source across the Indian subcontinent.
• MahuaMadhuca longifoliaAn excellent spring nectar source at the hottest and driest point of the central Indian year.
• SidrZiziphus spina-christiIn much of its range sidr is not merely a good forage plant but effectively the only one at that time of year, which makes it structurally critical rather than simply valuable.
• Oilseed rapeBrassica napusTop-rated for both nectar and pollen, and delivered at exactly the moment colonies are expanding fastest in spring. Its faults are entirely about what comes after.
• HeatherCalluna vulgaris
• ThymeThymus

Bees associated with this origin

• Asian honey beeApis ceranaThe western honey bee's counterpart across Asia, and a bee whose importance is out of all proportion to its honey yield. Apis cerana is the original host of Varroa destructor — the mite that has reshaped beekeeping worldwide — and it lives with the parasite without collapse. Understanding how is one of the more consequential open questions in apiculture.
• Western honey beeApis melliferaThe bee behind essentially all the world's honey, and the one most people mean when they say 'bee'. Apis mellifera is a perennial eusocial insect that overwinters as a living cluster rather than dying back each year — which is the whole reason it stores honey in quantity, and therefore the reason it was ever domesticated. It is native to Europe, Africa and western Asia and has been carried by people to every continent except Antarctica.
• Giant honey beeApis dorsataThe largest honey bee in the world, and the one that cannot be kept. Apis dorsata builds a single enormous open comb hanging from a branch or a cliff overhang, defends it ferociously, migrates hundreds of kilometres seasonally, and has defeated every serious attempt to hive it. It produces a great deal of honey and all of it has to be hunted rather than farmed — which is why the honey it makes comes with rope ladders and night climbs attached.
• Dwarf honey beeApis floreaThe smallest honey bee, and the one that does its waggle dance the right way up. Apis florea builds a single small comb wrapped around a twig in a bush, and because the top of that comb forms a horizontal platform, the dancing bee points directly at the food source rather than translating the direction into an angle against gravity. It is the simplest form of the dance language and probably the ancestral one.
• Stingless beesMeliponiniThe other honey-making bees, and the only serious rival to Apis for that title. Stingless bees are tropical, perennial and genuinely eusocial, and they store honey in clusters of egg-shaped wax-and-resin pots rather than in hexagonal comb. Their honey is different enough from Apis honey — wetter, more acidic, sharper, prone to fermenting — that several countries have had to write separate standards for it. They have been kept by people in Mesoamerica, Australia, Africa and South-East Asia for thousands of years, in traditions entirely independent of European beekeeping.
• Himalayan giant honey beeApis laboriosaThe largest honey bee in the world, nesting on sheer Himalayan cliff faces at altitudes up to four thousand metres, and the source of the red honey harvested by Nepalese honey hunters descending rope ladders down rock walls. It was regarded as a high-altitude form of the giant honey bee until the 1980s and is now generally treated as a separate species, and it is the only honey bee adapted to genuine mountain cold.
• BumblebeesBombusLarge, furry, loud, and cold-tolerant in a way no honey bee is. Bumblebees run annual colonies: a mated queen emerges alone in spring, founds a nest by herself, raises workers through the summer, produces new queens and males in late season, and then the entire colony dies except those new queens. They do make honey, in the strict sense of ripened nectar stores — just a few days' worth, because they have no winter to survive as a colony.
• Carpenter beesXylocopaThe largest bees most people ever see, and among the loudest. Carpenter bees excavate their own tunnels in dead wood using their mandibles — a remarkable feat for an insect — and the biggest species are the size of the top joint of a thumb. The violet carpenter bee, glossy black with iridescent blue-violet wings, is one of the most spectacular insects in Europe and is spreading northwards.

Honey in Asia

Himalayan cliff honey hunting is among the oldest documented human uses of honey anywhere and is still practised in something close to its original form. Apis cerana beekeeping is built into house architecture across the hills, with hive cavities in the wall accessed from inside.