What is monofloral honey?

How dominance is actually judged

• Pollen analysis, which counts pollen grains under a microscope. Useful and unreliable on its own — acacia and citrus are under-represented relative to their nectar contribution, while chestnut and forget-me-not are wildly over-represented.
• Physical measurements: colour, electrical conductivity, sugar ratios. These do a lot of the work for honeys where pollen counts mislead.
• Sensory assessment by trained panels, which is how several European monoflorals are actually certified.
• Chemical markers, where they exist. New Zealand's mānuka definition requires four chemical markers plus a mānuka DNA marker, and is the most rigorous standard applied to any honey anywhere.

How producers achieve it

By timing and geography rather than by controlling the bees. Colonies are stripped of existing stores, moved into a crop or a stand just as it comes into flower, and the honey removed as soon as the flow ends. Sourwood beekeepers move hives up Appalachian ridges; tupelo hives go into the swamp on barges; manuka and lavender producers follow the same logic. The bees are never restricted — the landscape is simply arranged so that one plant is overwhelmingly what is available.

Is it better?

It is more specific, which is not the same thing. A good multifloral from a species-rich meadow or an alpine pasture is often more complex and more interesting than a monofloral from a single crop, and it costs a fraction as much. Buy monofloral when you want a particular character — chestnut for bitterness, orange blossom for perfume, leatherwood because it tastes like nothing else — and buy multifloral for everything else.