Croatia honey

How honey is produced here

Dalmatian sage honey from the Adriatic islands and the Velebit karst is the prestige product and holds protected status. The Metcalfa honeydew flow, from an introduced planthopper, has become a significant and entirely accidental part of coastal production since the 1990s.

Flavour signature

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

• Herbaceous · 2
• Floral · 2
• Mineral and saline · 2
• Molasses and treacle · 2

Honeys from Croatia

• Dalmatian sage honeyWater white · MildDelicate and clean with a faintly medicinal sage note and a light herbal finish — subtle in a way that rewards eating it plain.
• Savory honeyLight amber · PronouncedIntensely herbal with a distinct peppery, almost oregano-like bite over a warm sweetness — one of the more assertive Mediterranean aromatics.
• Metcalfa honeydew honeyAmber · ModerateModerately sweet with a distinct fig and dried-fruit character over a malty base — noticeably fruitier than the conifer honeydews and quite unlike them.
• Oak honeydew honeyDark amber · IntenseEarthy, salty and barely sweet, with a bitter-mineral depth and a finish more like a stock or a yeast extract than a sweetener.
• Acacia honeyWater white · DelicateClean, light and sweet with almost nothing in the way. The honey to reach for when you want sweetness without a flavour opinion.

Plants behind these honeys

• SageSalviaVery high nectar and only moderate pollen — sage feeds adult foragers superbly and contributes comparatively little to brood rearing, which is a common pattern in the mint family.
• ThymeThymus
• MarjoramOriganum vulgareRepeatedly ranks at or near the top of controlled garden trials for total insect visits, and unusually it scores well for both bees and butterflies — few plants do both.
• English oakQuercus roburNo floral nectar and little useful pollen — the catkins are wind-pollinated and their pollen is collected only incidentally. The honeydew is the entire beekeeping interest, and stating that plainly is more useful than calling the tree bee-friendly.
• Black locustRobinia pseudoacaciaAn exceptional nectar source for a very short period. Pollen is useful but secondary — this is a nectar tree above all.

Bees associated with this origin

• 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.
• Carniolan honey beeApis mellifera carnicaThe second most widely kept honey bee subspecies, and the one most European beekeepers choose over Italian stock. Carniolans come from the eastern Alps and the Balkans, and they are adapted to a short intense season: explosive spring build-up, rapid contraction in a dearth, frugal winter consumption — and a swarming instinct that gives beekeepers more work than any other trait.
• Anatolian honey beeApis mellifera anatoliacaThe honey bee of central Turkey, and one of the subspecies at the heart of the species' evolutionary story — Anatolia sits close to where the western honey bee's lineages meet, and Turkey holds more honey bee subspecies within one country than anywhere else. It is hardy, frugal, defensive, and adapted to a continental climate of hard winters and hot dry summers.