Lavender Honey

After Mama and Papa, my first word was probably miel, which is French for honey.  I have loved honey for as long as I can remember.  I still have a little comic book about bees and honey, published by a Canadian honey producer in the early '60s.

An early childhood memory is of the big jar of crystalized honey, which my Grandparents bought in British Columbia's Boundary-Similkameen region. The honey was placed high above the kitchen cupboards, beckoning to be used on morning toast. Like Winnie-the-Pooh, I could have stuck my whole head in a jar of the stuff! 

Bees will travel three kilometres (just under two miles) from the hive, sometimes further.  They pollinate many varieties of plants along the way.  It is impossible to control their flight path (I have an image of hundreds of little bee harnesses, getting tangled up as they buzz from field to field).  To produce single flower honeys, such as clover, strawberry or blueberry, farmers need to plant a single crop stretching about three kilometres in every direction, or, like the Beatles song says, Strawberry Fields forever!

Lavender Honey is one of the rarest of the world's varieties of honey.  If you are fortunate to live near a lavender farm with it's own bee hives, you may have tasted the lightly floral, lavender flavour of their honey.

An on-line American company sources its lavender honey from a "remote region" in Southern Spain. They describe it as being light in colour, with a "slightly purple hue".  Closer to home, the largest lavender farm in Ontario, Terre Bleu, in Milton, Ontario, produces lavender honey.  In addition to equestrian stables, the farm has its own apiary, or bee hives.  The Globe and Mail describes their lavender honey as, "gorgeous...the kind of honey that must be tasted straight up on a spoon first, then drizzled over top-notch ice cream".

You can make your own lavender flavoured honey.  While not true lavender honey, it will taste of lavender. You'll need a mild honey, such as clover (buckwheat is way too strong).  Use just under a cup of honey for a small bunch of fresh or dried lavender blossoms (about fifteen blossoms). Gently heat the honey in a saucepan, and add the lavender. Let it cool, and refrigerate it overnight. Then, reheat it over medium heat, and strain the blossoms through a sieve so that you are left with clear honey.  Et, voila!  

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.