France honey

Production and trade in numbers

FAOSTAT, extracted 2026-09-29. Values not received as official national figures are marked as estimated or imputed. A year with no figure is a dash, never a zero. Trade values are customs declarations — not producer prices and not profit. Open it in the country tool, or read how countries compare.

Flavour signature

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

• Floral · 4
• Herbaceous · 3
• Resinous · 3
• Waxy · 3
• Fruity · 2
• Woody · 2
• Nutty · 2
• Mineral and saline · 2

Protected honeys from here

Registered names with a specification: the honey types each allows and the hardest limit it sets. Water and HMF limits stricter than the general honey standard are a sign of honey handled cold and sold young.

• Miel d’Alsace — PGI

  The Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin départements: the Vosges and Jura uplands, the vineyard hills and the Rhine plain.

  • Acacia (black locust) (Acacia honey) — electrical conductivity 1 à 3 (×10⁻⁴ S/cm, i.e. 0.1–0.3 mS/cm)
  • Flower (multifloral)
  • Sweet chestnut (Chestnut honey) — electrical conductivity ≥ 7 (×10⁻⁴ S/cm, i.e. ≥ 0.7 mS/cm)
  • Forest (honeydew) (Forest honeydew honey)
  • Lime (linden) (Linden honey) — electrical conductivity 3,5 à 8 (×10⁻⁴ S/cm, i.e. 0.35–0.8 mS/cm)
  • Fir honeydew (Silver fir honey) — electrical conductivity ≥ 9,5 (×10⁻⁴ S/cm, i.e. ≥ 0.95 mS/cm)

  Every type: water ≤ 18 %; hmf ≤ 10 mg/kg; sucrose ≤ 5 g/100 g; free acidity ≤ 50 meq/kg; diastase activity ≥ 8 Schade.

  Cahier des charges « Miel d’Alsace » en vue d’une indication géographique protégée, August 2004, Cahier des charges §IV.2.3. In French. Paraphrased by HoneyHQ from the document; not an official translation.

• Miel de Provence — PGI

  Provence: honey from bees foraging the region's wild flora and its own crops, lavender above all.

  • Lavender (Lavender honey)
  • Multifloral

  When the specification places it:

  • Flowering, Rosemary: February–March (onset as stated)
  • Nectar flow, Rosemary: March–May (season words; months derived)
  • Harvest, Thyme honey: March–May (season words; months derived)
  • Flowering, Heather: September–October (months as stated)
  • Nectar flow, Lavender: June–August (season words; months derived)

  Cahier des charges — indication géographique protégée « Miel de Provence », Undated text as filed in the EU register, Cahier des charges §IV.2.4. In French. Paraphrased by HoneyHQ from the document; not an official translation.

• Miel de sapin des Vosges — PDO

  Defined communes of the Vosges massif in Meurthe-et-Moselle, Moselle, Haute-Saône, Vosges and the Territoire de Belfort.

  • Fir honeydew (Vosges fir honey) — electrical conductivity > 950 µS/cm, i.e. 0.95 mS/cm

  Every type: water ≤ 18 %; electrical conductivity > 950 µS/cm, i.e. 0.95 mS/cm; hmf < 15 mg/kg.

  Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine « Miel de sapin des Vosges » (consolidated), As amended, OJ C 305, 15 September 2020, Cahier des charges, description du produit; aire géographique; méthode d’obtention. In French. Paraphrased by HoneyHQ from the document; not an official translation.

• Miel de Corse – Mele di Corsica — PDO

  The whole island of Corsica (Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud), where the honey is harvested and settled.

  • Spring
  • Spring maquis (tree heath)
  • Maquis honeydew
  • Chestnut grove (Chestnut honey)
  • Summer maquis
  • Autumn maquis (strawberry tree)

  Every type: water < 18 %; hmf ≤ 10 mg/kg.

  When the specification places it:

  • Nectar flow, Sweet chestnut: June–August (season words; months derived)
  • Nectar flow, Strawberry tree: September–February (season words; months derived)
  • Harvest, Corsican maquis honey: January–December (all year, as stated)
  • Harvest, Corsican maquis honey: April–November (months as stated)

  Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine « Miel de Corse – Mele di Corsica », Décret n°2013-1057 du 22 novembre 2013 (JORF 24.11.2013), Cahier des charges §2, §3, §5; annexe 1. In French. Paraphrased by HoneyHQ from the document; not an official translation.

Honeys from France

• Lavender honeyWhite · PronouncedOvertly perfumed — lavender flower, warm hay and a soft fruity sweetness underneath. Aromatic in a way most honeys are not.
• Chestnut honeyAmber · IntenseAromatic, woody and unmistakably bitter — sweetness first, tannin second, and a long dry finish.
• 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.
• Sunflower honeyExtra light amber · MildStraw, beeswax and pollen, with a slightly waxy mouthfeel and a fresh, faintly herbal edge.
• Vosges fir honeyDark amber · PronouncedBalsamic and malty with a resinous woody depth and a marked lack of sweetness — closer to treacle and pine resin than to anything floral.
• Blackthorn honeyExtra white · MildDelicate, almondy and fleeting. Recognisably a Prunus honey, and the closest thing in the European catalogue to the taste of a hedge in March.
• Field maple honeyExtra light amber · ModerateFresh and faintly green with a warm caramel base — a spring honey with rather more body than its colour suggests.
• Garrigue honeyExtra light amber · ModerateHerbal, warm and dry, with thyme and rosemary running through a light caramel body. The clearest example in the catalogue of a honey tasting of a landscape.

When these honeys are typically harvested

Sourced periods for this place

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.

• Flowering: Rosemary — February–March

  Provence (the PGI area), France · northern hemisphere · Onset as stated · Protected-name specification

  "Early flowerings — from February–March for rosemary" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the specification).

  The specification gives when rosemary begins, as an example of Provence's long season; it does not say when it ends.

  Source: Cahier des charges — indication géographique protégée « Miel de Provence ». Checked 2026-10-31.

• Nectar flow: Rosemary — March–May

  Provence (the PGI area), France · northern hemisphere · Season words; months derived · Protected-name specification

  "This flow takes place in spring, or very rarely in autumn" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the specification).

  An autumn flow is possible but rare, and is not drawn.

  Source: Cahier des charges — indication géographique protégée « Miel de Provence ». Checked 2026-10-31.

• Harvest: Thyme honey — March–May

  Provence (the PGI area), France · northern hemisphere · Season words; months derived · Protected-name specification

  "This harvest takes place in spring, after the rosemary flow" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the specification).

  Later in spring than rosemary; the specification does not narrow it further, so the whole season is drawn.

  Source: Cahier des charges — indication géographique protégée « Miel de Provence ». Checked 2026-10-31.

• Flowering: Heather — September–October

  Provence (the PGI area), France · northern hemisphere · Months as stated · Protected-name specification

  "Late flowerings — September–October for heather, for example" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the specification). The specification names tree heath, ling and bell heather among Provence's heathers.

  Heather honeys are harvested in the Maures, the Estérel and the Var coast.

  Source: Cahier des charges — indication géographique protégée « Miel de Provence ». Checked 2026-10-31.

• Nectar flow: Lavender — June–August

  Provence (the PGI area), France · northern hemisphere · Season words; months derived · Protected-name specification

  Hives move to the mountains "until the end of spring", then "to the lavender honey production areas, before returning to the more southerly wintering areas in autumn" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the specification). The lavender flow falls between, in summer.

  A violent mistral can 'dry' the lavender nectar, the specification notes; yields vary widely from year to year.

  Source: Cahier des charges — indication géographique protégée « Miel de Provence ». Checked 2026-10-31.

• Nectar flow: Sweet chestnut — June–August

  Corsica (the PDO area), France · northern hemisphere · Season words; months derived · Protected-name specification

  Among the island's seasonal nectar staples, "chestnut at the start of summer" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the Corsica specification).

  The specification says the start of summer; the whole season is drawn, because it does not say which month it means. The quantity varies with the year's weather.

  Source: Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine « Miel de Corse – Mele di Corsica ». Checked 2026-10-31.

• Nectar flow: Strawberry tree — September–February

  Corsica (the PDO area), France · northern hemisphere · Season words; months derived · Protected-name specification

  Among the island's seasonal nectar staples, "strawberry tree in autumn–winter" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the Corsica specification).

  The source of the bitter autumn-maquis honey. The quantity varies with the year's weather.

  Source: Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine « Miel de Corse – Mele di Corsica ». Checked 2026-10-31.

• Nectar flow: Sweet chestnut — June

  Corsica (the PDO area), France · northern hemisphere · Months as stated · Beekeeping authority

  Some of the colonies made early in the season "can go into production on the chestnut flow (mid-June)" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the beekeeping institute's case study).

  The study places the flow in mid-June and gives no end month, so only June is drawn. Since the chestnut gall wasp arrived in 2010 the chestnut flow has become less reliable, the study notes.

  Source: Cas-type apiculture — Corse : miel en AOP et vente en demi-gros. Checked 2026-10-31.

• Nectar flow: Strawberry tree — October–November

  Corsica (the PDO area), France · northern hemisphere · Months as stated · Beekeeping authority

  "At the end of the season (October or November), beekeepers can take their hives to strawberry tree"; the season "can run until November or even December with the autumn maquis flow (mainly strawberry tree)" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the beekeeping institute's case study).

  Drawn October to November; "or even December" is an extension the study does not make regular, so it is kept in the words and not drawn. The flow may yield honey for sale or only the colonies' winter stores.

  Source: Cas-type apiculture — Corse : miel en AOP et vente en demi-gros. Checked 2026-10-31.

• Harvest: Corsican maquis honey — January–December

  Corsica (the PDO area), France · northern hemisphere · All year, as stated · Protected-name specification

  "Harvest periods take place throughout the year", from capped combs and at good ripeness (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the Corsica specification).

  The six named types follow the island's flowering sequence through the year, from spring to the autumn maquis; the specification gives no month for each type.

  Source: Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine « Miel de Corse – Mele di Corsica ». Checked 2026-10-31.

• Harvest: Corsican maquis honey — April–November

  Corsica (the PDO area), France · northern hemisphere · Months as stated · Protected-name specification

  "The harvests are spread through the whole year, from April to October–November or even February" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the Corsica specification).

  Drawn April to November; the specification's "or even February" is a late extension it does not make regular, so it is kept in the words and not drawn.

  Source: Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine « Miel de Corse – Mele di Corsica ». Checked 2026-10-31.

• Harvest: Corsican maquis honey — March–May

  Corsica (the PDO area), France · northern hemisphere · Months as stated · Beekeeping authority

  The spring honey (clementine, asphodel) is "harvested from March to May" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the regional tourism agency's page).

  The PDO's "Printemps" type.

  Source: Le miel corse. Checked 2026-10-31.

• Harvest: Corsican maquis honey — May–September

  Corsica (the PDO area), France · northern hemisphere · Months as stated · Beekeeping authority

  The maquis honeydews (rockrose, oaks, mastic tree) are "harvested from May to September" on the coast and the wooded land around the maquis (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the regional tourism agency's page).

  The PDO's "Miellats du maquis" type. A harvest of honeydew honey: it says when the honey comes off, not when the insects are active.

  Source: Le miel corse. Checked 2026-10-31.

• Harvest: Corsican maquis honey — August

  Corsica (the PDO area), France · northern hemisphere · Onset as stated · Beekeeping authority

  The summer maquis honey is "harvested from August" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the regional tourism agency's page).

  The PDO's "Maquis d'été" type. The page gives when the harvest begins, not when it ends.

  Source: Le miel corse. Checked 2026-10-31.

• Harvest: Corsican maquis honey — October–February

  Corsica (the PDO area), France · northern hemisphere · Months as stated · Beekeeping authority

  The autumn maquis honey, mainly strawberry tree, is "harvested from October to February" (HoneyHQ's translation from the French of the regional tourism agency's page).

  The PDO's "Maquis d'automne" type; it crosses the new year.

  Source: Le miel corse. Checked 2026-10-31.

Every sourced period, on the honey atlas

Plants behind these honeys

• LavenderLavandula angustifoliaAn unusually good nectar plant relative to its pollen offering. Bees visiting lavender are mostly there for nectar, which is why it supports adult foragers well and contributes less to brood rearing.
• Sweet chestnutCastanea sativaAn exceptional pollen source — the catkins shed enormous quantities — and a good nectar source in the right weather. The pollen arrives at a useful moment for colonies building towards late summer.
• Black locustRobinia pseudoacaciaAn exceptional nectar source for a very short period. Pollen is useful but secondary — this is a nectar tree above all.
• SunflowerHelianthus annuusAn outstanding late-summer pollen source at a point in the season when pollen is becoming scarce, which matters for colonies raising the bees that will overwinter.
• Silver firAbies albaNo floral nectar and negligible pollen. Its entire forage value is honeydew, which is why nectar and pollen are rated separately in this catalogue — a single bee-friendliness score would make this tree look worthless.
• BlackthornPrunus spinosaGood for both at a moment when almost nothing else of tree scale is open. Its value is the date rather than the quantity.
• Field mapleAcer campestreVery high nectar from a tree most people do not realise is flowering, plus a honeydew contribution later in the season.
• SycamoreAcer pseudoplatanusVery high nectar and good pollen, delivered at tree scale in mid-spring, plus a honeydew contribution later. A single mature sycamore is a serious forage asset.
• Norway mapleAcer platanoidesAn excellent early nectar and pollen source, and one of the more significant urban resources in European towns.
• ThymeThymus

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.
• 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.
• Mining beesAndrenaSolitary ground-nesting bees, and the small volcano-shaped mounds of fine soil that appear on lawns and bare paths in April are theirs. Mining bees are the classic spring solitary bees of the northern hemisphere: short-lived, entirely harmless, often nesting in dense aggregations that look like a colony but are not, and a great many of them are specialists that visit only one kind of flower.
• European dark beeApis mellifera melliferaThe honey bee that was native to northern Europe before anyone imported anything, and one that has been hybridised close to extinction across most of its range. The dark bee is slow to build, frugal, long-lived, and adapted to cold wet summers and long winters — traits that made it unfashionable when Italian stock arrived, and that look considerably more valuable now than they did in 1900.
• Red mason beeOsmia bicornisThe bee in your bee hotel. Osmia bicornis is the commonest cavity-nesting solitary bee in northwest Europe, the one most gardeners actually manage to attract, and one of the most effective fruit pollinators known — a few hundred females will pollinate an orchard acre as thoroughly as a honey bee colony of tens of thousands. It is also, for practical purposes, incapable of stinging anyone.
• Hairy-footed flower beeAnthophora plumipesA fast, furry, hovering bee that appears in gardens in early March and is regularly reported as two different species, because the sexes look nothing alike: the females are entirely black with orange pollen brushes, the males gingery-brown with long feathery hairs on their middle legs. It is one of the earliest substantial bees of the year and a specialist of the deep spring flowers honey bees cannot reach.
• 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.
• Violet carpenter beeXylocopa violaceaOne of Europe's largest and most spectacular bees — a jet-black insect the size of a small bird with wings that flash iridescent violet in sunlight. It excavates nest tunnels in dead wood, and it has expanded northwards across Europe over recent decades, reaching southern England where it was formerly a rarity.

Honey in France

A long-documented beekeeping region and the source of much of the vocabulary of European apiculture. Wax chandlery, monastic apiaries and the liturgical demand for beeswax shaped production here as across Latin Christendom, and the practice of moving colonies to follow flowering is well recorded. Lavender, acacia and chestnut are among the honeys most associated with French production.

Traditions documented here

How honey is, or was, obtained in this place. Each record names the communities it is documented among, the period the record describes, and whether anyone is known to be doing it now.

• Moving hives to follow floweringBeekeeping tradition · Widespread living practiceCarrying colonies to successive flowerings — up a mountain, down a river, across a region — long before lorries. The direct ancestor of industrial migratory pollination, and a practice with a documented history in the Mediterranean, the Nile valley and Arabia.
• Honey in medieval European cookingCultural use · HistoricalHow European kitchens sweetened before cane sugar became affordable, what honey was used for, and the spiced honey cakes that outlived the era that produced them.
• Beeswax in Christian liturgyRitual and ceremony · Widespread living practiceThe requirement that liturgical candles be made of beeswax, the Easter proclamation that praises the bees who made it, and the enormous demand that requirement placed on medieval beekeeping.
• Beeswax candlesCultural use · Local living practiceThe largest single use of a bee product in European history: candles that burned clean enough for indoor use, made by a regulated trade, and demanded in quantity by the church.
• Wax seals and sealingCultural use · HistoricalWax pressed with a matrix to authenticate a document or close a container — an authentication technology that worked because breaking it was obvious and forging it was hard.
• Bee omens and household customCultural use · HistoricalA body of recorded custom treating bees as household members whose behaviour carried meaning: swarms read as omens, bees never sold for money, and the hive kept informed of family events.
• Migratory beekeepingBeekeeping tradition · Widespread living practiceLoading colonies onto vehicles and moving them to a crop or a honey flow. An old idea — the Nile and the Mediterranean did it by boat — running today at continental scale on lorries.
• Urban beekeepingBeekeeping tradition · Widespread living practiceHives on roofs, balconies, allotments and hotel terraces. Genuinely productive, socially useful, and routinely justified with a biodiversity argument the evidence does not support.