{"id":3210,"date":"2025-01-14T10:58:33","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T08:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/?p=3210"},"modified":"2025-01-14T11:07:22","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T09:07:22","slug":"honey-varieties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/en\/2025\/01\/14\/honey-varieties\/","title":{"rendered":"Honey varieties"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Honey varieties” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:left|color:%23223a6e” use_theme_fonts=”yes” css=””][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”3208″ img_size=”full” css=””][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]According to the European legislation (Directive EU 110\/2001), honey is the natural sweet substance produced by Apis mellifera bees from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants or from the excretions of plant-sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which the bees collect, transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store and leave in honeycombs to ripen and mature. Therefore, based on its origin, honey is classified either as blossom honey or as honeydew honey.<\/p>\n

Pure honey is the one where the organoleptic, physico-chemical, and microscopic characteristics of a specific plant prevail. There are plants whose honey has a very high pollen grain concentration, like chestnut honey. A concentration range between 60\u201390% is required for a honey to be classified as pure. There are also plants whose low concentration of pollen grain, 3\u201330%, distinguishes the botanic origin of the honey, like orange honey.<\/p>\n

The main varieties of Greek honey are:<\/p>\n

Pine honey<\/strong>. Representing almost 65% of the Greek honey production, this honey comes from honey secretions of Marchalina hellenica (Gen.) (worker), a sap-sucking insect that feeds on several pine species, mostly Pinus halepensis subsp. halepensis Miller and Pinus halepensis subsp. brutia Ten. It sucks the pine juice without fully absorbing it and secretes a large part in the form of drops (Gounari et al., 2002). These secretions are rich in sugars and bees collect them just like they collect nectar from flowers. Its electrical conductivity is \u22650.9 (ms\/cm) (Greek Food and Drinks Code, article 67).<\/p>\n

Fir honey<\/strong>. Just like pine honey, fir-originated honey is produced through an insect-involving process. Two soft-scale (coccidea) insects, Physokeremes hemicryphus (Dalman) and Eulecanium sericeum (Lindiger) and three aphids, Mindarus abierinus, Cinara confinis and Cinara pectinatae live on the fir (Abies cephalonica Loudon) (Gounari, 2004). Fir honey represents 5\u20137% of the annual honey production in Greece and stands out for its antioxidant activity (Melliou et al., 2004). Its electrical conductivity is \u22651.0 (ms\/cm) and moisture \u2264 18% (Greek Food and Drinks Code, article 67).<\/p>\n

Chestnut honey<\/strong>. Originating from the plant\u2019s Castanea sativa Miller nectar and also from honey secretions of the aphid Myzocallis castanicola, chestnut honey is dark-colored with intense, strong and quite bitter taste (Thrasyvoulou et al., 2002). Its properties are: electrical conductivity: \u22651.1 (ms\/cm), main pollen grain \u2265 87% and total pollen grain \u2265 100,000 per 10 gr (Greek Food and Drinks Code, article 67).<\/p>\n

Heather honey<\/strong>. Originating from autumn (Erica verticilata L.) and spring heather (Erica arborea L.), this is a reddish honey, with a distinctive flavor and aroma, crystallizing within 1\u20133 months, with a main pollen grain concentration \u2265 45% (Greek Food and Drinks Code, article 67).<\/p>\n

Orange honey<\/strong>. Representing almost 10% of the annual honey production in Greece, this is an intensively aromatic and fair-colored honey, with a distinctive flavor that crystallizes very quickly. Its properties are: electrical conductivity: \u22640.45 (ms\/cm), main pollen grain \u2265 3% and total pollen grain < 70,000 per 10 gr (Greek Food and Drinks Code, article 67).<\/p>\n

Cotton honey<\/strong>. Originating from the nectar of Gossypium hirsutum L. cultivated in several areas along Greece. Known for its antiseptic activity due to its high concentration of hydrogen peroxide (Thrasyvoulou et al., 2002).<\/p>\n

Sunflower honey<\/strong>. Originating from the nectar of Helianthus annuus L., this honey is not produced on a fixed basis annually, whereas, its market value is quite low. Its properties are: total pollen grain <55,000 per 10 gr and main pollen grain \u2265 20% (Greek Food and Drinks Code, article 67).<\/p>\n

Thyme honey<\/strong>. In Greece, this honey derives from the Lamiaceae family plants, mostly growing in the south and central parts of the country. It is characterized by low pollen grain concentration of the Thymus genus and in Greece, it must have thyme pollen grain concentration \u2265 18% (Greek Food and Drinks Code, article 67). Amber-colored and with a distinctive aroma and flavor, thyme honey crystallizes within 6\u201318 months, whereas it represents 10% of the total honey production in Greece. It has been the most popular Greek honey since antiquity and due to its specific organoleptic properties, it is the most important Greek honey variety.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greek honey, renowned since antiquity, is an integral part of the Mediterranean diet, offering a unique variety of aromas, flavors, and properties shaped by the country\u2019s rich biodiversity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-magic-of-greek-honey"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3211,"href":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210\/revisions\/3211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beecomeafriend.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}