green honey
Medicinal Green Honey – 1 Strange Find!
I chanced upon a strange jar of honey in one of the shopping malls in Malaysia and stopped by to find out more. Believe it or not, the honey in the jar was green in color! Like all who spotted the honey, I thought it must be some gimmicky honey product which has some green coloring added to make it a more exciting honey. It also reminded me of an old news report about bees in France feeding on sugar waste from a nearby chocolate factory that made M&Ms and turning some beekeepers’ honey into alarming shades of blue and green.
The seller was quick to defend that it was an extremely rare green honey which was 100% pure with no coloring added and was produced by green honeybees that built their honey comb underground in the wild. Wild honeybees usually build hives in tree tops off the ground.
These green honeybees are not solitary bees like the mining bees (Andrena bees) or the green sweat bees (Agapostemon) which also thrive and nest underground and are familiar to most beekeepers. While solitary ground nesting bee species are not honeybees and do not have workers nor honey production, these rare bees build comb and produce a green honey, which is believed to possess even stronger antibacterial properties than the highly sought after Tualang honey and so far, known to be found only in Malaysia and the Philippines.
Not surprising, its price is three times of Tualang honey – approx. 90 USD for a 500g jar, which is about the price of a 500g jar of UMF 15+ Manuka honey from New Zealand.
Online information about this exotic green honey is scarce. There are a few short YouTube video clips showing the harvesting of the green honey from underground, like the one I have included below, but overall, nothing substantial on the benefits of the honey could be further established.
Harvesting Green Honey
Therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavor in continual motion;
To which is fixed as an aim or butt
Obedience; for so work the honeybees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts,
Where some like magistrates correct at home,
Others like merchants venture trade abroad,
Others like soldiers armed in their stings
Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor,
Who, busied in his majesties, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-eyed justice with his surly hum
Delivering o’er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.
William Shakespeare
Related Pages on Green Honey
1. Two very unique monofloral honey from Malaysia, pineapple honey and durian honey – all in Truely Unique Honey from Malaysia
2. Malaysia’s one of the most well-researched, highly prized honey – Tualang honey. All in Probably Malaysia’s #1 Honey – Tualang Honey
3. Wild claims about wild honey in Puzzling Wild Honey Questions. Need Your Help!
4. Yet another rare find from the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia – Is Indonesia’s White Honey Real?
5. Watch these daredevils harvest honey hung from hundreds of meters above ground in Nepal and listen to what they say in: Nepal’s Daredevil Honey Hunters – Is it All About the Money, Honey?
6. You were told that sour honey could cure cancer? Don’t get too excited before you read this: Sour Honey as Cancer Cure?
7. Meet Diniy, a young beekeeper from Selangor, Malaysia. Among his many interesting hobbies is beekeeping and what is so special about his bees is they are all stingless! All in: Stingless Bees are an Eye Opener.
End of “Medicinal Green Honey – 1 Strange Find!“. Back to “Truly Unique Honey from Malaysia”