Fresh honeycomb

Growing up in a big city, I can’t remember having local raw unpasteurized honey at home. I do remember, however, my first taste of honeycomb as a child, at the Agricultural Building at Toronto’s summer CNE (Canadian National Exhibition), both surprised and fascinated by the taste and the glorious beauty of the natural honeycomb.

In our house, honey was most often a tub of Billy Bee creamed pasteurized clover honey, or the squeeze top liquid version, and was considered a special treat.

We grew up, instead, on Tate & Lyle’s Golden Syrup… no surprise in our very English household! My father worked for Tate’s in our hometown of Liverpool, England, and then for a Canadian sugar company that they had acquired. In our home, sugar was “good for us” on many levels!

But we did have honey on occasion. If I was home sick with a cough or a cold, my mother would give me a treat of honey, spread on toast, saying it was good for me.

A Canadian “classic” – Billy Bee Clover Honey

Tate and Lyle’s Golden Syrup, a staple in our very English home

And now I know that raw honey is not just tasty but is also an ancient medicine and — in its raw unpasteurized form — is antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and anti-allergenic. It contains pollens and enzymes which can be quite beneficial for our health. (See the Caution at end of this post, however, as raw pasteurized honey is NOT for everyone).

Even Big Pharma is aware of the medicinal benefits of honey, funding hospital studies in the topical use of honey for healing skin conditions such as burns, bed sores and more.

Last year, I made several jars of infused honey: Sage honey, Thyme honey and Rose honey.  And this year I’m hoping to gather some hawthorn blossoms — aka the Queen of the May and associated with Beltaine — for a lovely floral honey.

🌸 🌿 🐝

Infused Honey is a great addition to the culinary repertoire
and to the Home Apothecary Cupboard.

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I use Sage honey to soothe a dry scratchy throat caused by coughing and also for treating colds. Thyme honey is also excellent for this, and can be used as an anti-inflammatory, as a cough syrup and to reduce congestion. Works for me! You can also use both for culinary purposes. Thyme honey is lovely drizzled on goat cheese, havarti or feta.

And honey infused with florals such as rose, hawthorn or lavender…. sublime! They are a lovely sweetener in tea, fresh lemonade, drizzled on yogurt, and more.

Getting ready for cough/cold season last summer with Sage and Thyme honey infusions. I used local organic herbs and locally produced blackberry blossom organic honey

INFUSING HONEY
Gather Victoria (do visit their site, a wealth of info and recipes for the wildcrafter) recommends this rule of thumb: 1 parts herb to 12 parts honey for a cold infusion and 1 part herb to 5 parts honey for a warm infusion. Please note this is by WEIGHT, not by liquid/dry measure. Gather gives an example using rose petals: 50 grams of fresh petals infused in 600ml of raw liquid honey.

I tend to use the folk method for measuring out my ingredients. In this case, I would fill a mason jar roughly half way for fresh materials or roughly one-quarter full for dried materials, then top with raw honey.

I also tend to start my infusions on the New Moon, so that rising lunar energy can pull even more of the medicine from the plant. But when using fresh, foraged materials, we may not be collecting at the New Moon. So, nice to do but not absolutely necessary.

BEFORE YOU START

• Use clean sterilized jars, with a tight fitting lids. To sterilize your jars, place in a large pot and cover with water. Once the water has reached a rolling boil, continue boiling for 15 minutes. You can also place in a 275F oven (on a tray) for roughly 30 minutes (not the USDA preferred method, however).
• Garble the fresh ingredients to remove any bugs, black leaves, etc. I love the word garble. One of my herbal teachers always used it; this is an archaic use of the word — meaning to sort out or cull — and, to me at least, it sounds so magical!
• I also let the botanicals dry a little, so they are a little limp or wilted, to remove some of the plant moisture. Raw honey can keep for a very long time but water, introduced through the addition of plant materials, can quickly lead to spoilage or fermentation.

Cold infusion Method

Garbling and chopping sage before infusion

Add herbs or other botanicals to your jar using one of the methods above. Top with honey, and then stir to remove any air bubbles. Top up if necessary, making sure the botanicals are fully covered with honey. Cap tightly and label with the date and ingredients.

I like to keep my jars out on our balcony, where they can get the sun, but a sunny spot indoors —a windowsill or a shelf near a window — would be fine. Check and turn daily. If the herbs start swelling and rise above the top of the honey level, add more honey… and be sure to check that the exposure hasn’t spoiled the herbs.

After about two weeks, check the taste. If you like it, and can taste your infused herbs or botanicals coming through sufficiently, strain the honey through cheesecloth into a new clean jar. I tend to leave my infusions for about a month but the timing does depend on that magick created between the potency of your herbs, the amount of warmth and light,  and the honey itself.

Warm Infusion Method
You can speed up the infusion process by gently warming your sealed jars in a hot water bath. Place the sealed jars in a large pot or suitable container, and top with boiled water. Repeat several times over a couple of days. Do a taste test to see if the botanicals are sufficiently infused.

Rosemary Gladstar, in her book Medicinal Herbs, A Beginner’s Guide,  also suggests an alternate method:  use a slow cooker set to 100F (roughly 37C) for a few hours.

How warm should the honey get in the warm infusion method?
Even the experts differ on this. Rosemary Gladstar says to keep the temperature below 110F (roughly 43C). Gather Victoria says the limit is 60C (roughly 140F). Your choice. If the honey does become pasteurized, you may not get all the medicinal magick and enzymes from the honey, but it will likely not crystallize as easily and may be safer for those with compromised immunity systems.

STORAGE
Keep your jars tightly sealed, and your honey should last for several months. Some say to store in a cool place (even the refrigerator) but this can lead to quick crystallization (warm gently to liquefy again). Others recommend keeping in a warm spot to prevent crystallization. So, again, your choice. What is imporant, is to check the honey to make sure it hasn’t spoiled or started to ferment.

But even fermented honey can be used, and some choose to ferment their honey for the additional medicinal benefits (after all, it can be used to make mead!).

TIPS
Rosemary Gladstar recommends gently warming the honey first (not above 110F) with the cold infusion method to better extract the medicinal properties of the botanicals.

When straining and decanting, a very gentle warming can help the process. Immerse the jar in a hot water bath for a few minutes, but be careful not to let the temperature of the honey rise above the pasteurization point.

And don’t forget to use the leftover botanicals: they can be a wonderful addition to salad dressings, to teas and in cooking.

CAUTIONS

It is generally recommended that both pasteurized and unpasteurized honey should not be given to children under one year of age due to the risk of Infant Botulism (Health Canada guideline).

It is also generally recommended that raw unpasteurized honey should not be consumed by anyone with a compromised immune system, or by pregnant women.

Always research first to be sure anything you ingest or use topically is safe for YOU.

ETHICS
I do recognize that some will choose not to consume honey of any kind, as it collected from living creatures. In addition, some small beekeepers and large commercial operations have exploitative and unethical practices, such selective breeding and worse. Know from whom you buy! For the perspective of the Vegan Society on this topic, click here.

I choose to support local ethical beekeepers by purchasing their honey as well as their natural product sidelines such as beeswax, pollen, and propolis. I support our local economy by purchasing at local farmers markets, or at their retail outlets, and make sure that I buy only from apiarists that place their hives in organic farms and fields, free from pesticides and toxins, and who observe sustainable beekeeping practices.

Healthy pollinators are essential for fertilizing plants and with the phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder, we need our pollinators!

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