Polyfloral honey is a mixture of converted sugary substances obtained by bees from the nectar of several melliferous plants at once. There are many minerals and vitamins in such a product – it is considered the most useful for the human body.
The content of the article
- 1 Features
- 2 Overview of the main types
- 2.1 May
- 2.2 Fruit
- 2.3 Meadow
- 2.4 Forest
- 2.5 Field
- 2.6 Mountain
- 3 Cost
Features
Polyfloral varieties are obtained thanks to forest and meadow herbs that bloom in summer. In this case, flying bees collect nectar and pollen from several honey plants at the same time.
The main features of multicomponent honey are:
- richness of chemical composition;
- the scarcity of varieties on the market;
- relatively small variety of colors – from light yellow to dark yellow, rarely brownish shades.
The physical properties of the bee product are determined by the climate, which determines the composition of the soil, temperature and other weather conditions. The climate directly depends on what kind of plants and when they will bloom in the region.
That is, the taste characteristics of multicomponent honey (its aroma, consistency) are directly influenced by a set of melliferous vegetation characteristic of a particular region or area.
The breed of bees used in the apiary is also important. Each of them has its own taste and color preferences. For example, a Central Russian bee bypasses red clover.
Read: How bees work on pollination of plants
In addition to nectar, other sugary solutions get into the hives: honeydew, various fruit juices. They are also classified as natural varieties of honey. But for hibernating bees, such food is not useful – beekeepers specially pump out honeydew bribes, and instead they give out sugar syrup to bee colonies. As for a person, fall for him is a storehouse of trace elements.
Overview of the main types
Multicomponent varieties of honey are usually distinguished by the territories in which the flight bees worked during the honey flow (forest, meadow, agricultural fields, mountains). There is a variety named after the honey collection time – May.
The most valuable is the mountain bribe received from the alpine meadows, which lie at an altitude of 1 meters above sea level.
Polyfloral honey types:
- collected in the mountains – mountain (alpine);
- obtained from meadow herbs – meadow;
- made by bees from the nectar of the forest undergrowth and plants blooming on the edges, lawns, clearings, burned-out forest;
- collected on agricultural land – field;
- obtained by pollination of garden plots – fruit (one of the rarest varieties).
May
This type of bee product is obtained in April, May. Garden shrubs and trees are the source of nectar. As well as spring wild-growing melliferous plants: hazelnut (hazel), alder, willows (including delirium), maples, bird cherry, sometimes acacia, herbs (coltsfoot, violet, sage, dandelions).
The product has a beautiful golden color. The scent is fragrant with light floral notes. The taste is delicate and refined.
It is recommended to use it internally for general strengthening of the body, combating seasonal lack of vitamins, as well as for a variety of diseases.
Fruit
As the name suggests, this product is made from the nectar of fruit trees and bushes. Technically, this honey can be attributed to the May variety. The only difference is that bees receive bribes mainly from flowering gardens. It can be provided in marketable volumes only when migrating to the vast territories of garden associations.
The bee product has a light amber hue. The aroma is refined, the taste is felt the presence of nectar of fruit flowers. This is one of the best varieties in terms of taste.
In folk clinics, such honey is advised to be used for coronary heart disease.
Here are some recipes:
- A course lasting one to two months includes daily consumption of 50 grams of bee products.
- The course for two to three months includes taking three times a day before meals a mixture of chopped garlic with liquid honey (ratio 250 to 350 grams). This medicine is infused for 7-10 days. It is taken orally 30-40 minutes before the main meals.
- The third recipe involves taking rosehip juice with honey (in equal proportions) half an hour before meals three times a day. The dosage is a teaspoon.
Meadow
This type of bee product is one of the most beneficial for human health, since pollen and nectar are collected from a large number of meadow melliferous plants that bloom almost simultaneously. Usually it is pumped out of the honeycomb in June, July.
The taste and smell of such a bee product clearly shows a herbal, rather sharp, but pleasant bouquet of meadow herbs. The color is largely determined by the type of flowering plants. If medicinal dandelions predominate, the shade will be deep yellow.
The medicinal properties are due to the presence of nectar not only of dandelions, but also of other plants: tartar, chicory, motherwort, sage, cornflowers, sweet clover, St. John’s wort, hogweed, mallow, St. John’s wort, thyme, shepherd’s purse, and other species.
Meadow herbs provide antibacterial, analgesic, anti-inflammatory properties. This honey is especially useful for diseases of the kidneys and other organs of the digestive system.
Forest
This variety may have a reduced palatability due to the large amount of honeydew or heather or buckthorn nectar. In other cases, the taste will be close to the meadow herb.
The shade varies depending on the predominance of a particular plant. Usually the color range is presented from light yellow to deep dark brown.
The product can be summer or spring, obtained from blooming melliferous wild plants: blueberries, acacia, willows, wild fruit trees, mountain ash. The early variety is more valuable than the summer one.
Summer bribes are received mainly from grassy and shrub undergrowth: strawberries, lungwort, oregano, heather, fireweed, lingonberries, blackberries, raspberries. Also in the bribe there is nectar from limes, viburnum, chernoklen, wild rose, hawthorn.
Forest herbs provide this honey with exceptional medicinal properties. It is often called the cure for all diseases.
Field
This variety is obtained mainly from the nectar of vegetation of agricultural land, and this includes not only classical crops such as buckwheat, rapeseed, sunflower, mustard, alfalfa, sainfoin. But also grown for medicinal purposes or growing as weeds on the borders of fields, like sow thistle, thistle.
The color and smell depends on which culture prevails in the bribe.
Beekeepers try to get a monofloral variety by roaming with apiaries to fields with certain crops. Therefore, field polyfloral honey can be attributed to quite rare varieties, like fruit honey.
With its help, they fight sleep disorders, headaches, malfunctions of the cardiovascular and nervous systems.
Mountain
The mountain variety is obtained by the work of bee colonies in alpine meadows or in alpine forests. The most valuable is the alpine (meadow) variety.
It has a pleasant, herbaceous smell. The taste is full-bodied. The color varies depending on the predominant honey plant in the flow. The healing properties are due to the presence of pollen and nectar from several alpine plants at once.
This honey is recommended for a wide variety of ailments. But it is believed that it brings special benefits to the respiratory system.
Note. Sometimes monofloral varieties are specially mixed to obtain multicomponent (polyfloral) honey with an exquisite, piquant aroma and the same unusual taste.
Cost
In the markets, polyfloral varieties are sold depending on the season – favorable or not in terms of honey collection, as well as on the locality – in large cities, honey will cost the buyer more.
Polyfloral honey price (examples of market prices):
- a mixture of buckwheat and herbs – 400-500 rubles. per kilogram;
- Altai herbs – 500-600 rubles;
- field herbs (thistle, spurge, gills, motherwort) with a predominance of sunflower – 500 rubles;
- meadow herbs – 500-600 rubles.
The cost depends, among other things, on the type of apiary – private or industrial. Private apiaries are more democratic in shaping their pricing policy than large producers.
