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Saturday, December 18, 2010

Radish Honey, The Bee Folks, Mount Airy, MD

Surfing one day online I found a website: http://www.beefolks.com/ where you can buy all sorts of interesting American honey and honey/bee products. I got my radish honey from them.

As per the website, the owners started out as a family of backyard beekeepers in Maryland but loved it so much they quit their day jobs and started beekeeping full time. Four or five years later, they have a great website and an impressive collection of honeys and honey products, including candles, hand creams, soap, and lip balms. A quick count of the number of varieties of honey they produce tallies to 17, with some that I've never come across before, like: butterbean, meadowfoam, snowberry and radish. I guess that a bee can make honey out of anything that it pollinates, but radishes? I guess radishes have flowers. A quick look online confirms that they do. Radish flowers are delicate, four petal flowers.

The radish honey has crystallized since I got it- it was liquid when it arrived but I stored it in a cool corner of the kitchen. It is a mellow opaque yellow color. The crystals are evenly spread throughout the jar. Sometimes crystals form in patterns, starting on the top or sides of the jar. It hasn't been the case for this honey. The crystals are also quite large. I can see their chunky outline when I dip a toothpick in. The taste is clean, clear, smooth and slightly spicy, a little like cloves. There is no discernible aftertaste, just a smooth taste of sweetness at the end. It has a very simple, clean taste but it is unusual in the subtle kick it has. It would be nice in some teas, on toast, in hot cereal and in baking.

If you want to try it, or other American honeys, you can buy it online at The Bee Folks website.

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