Tag: Honey ratings

City Honey versus land Honey

We compare city honey versus country honey.

The idyll of country life is deceptive. It is true that we can cycle through picturesque landscapes in many places in Germany. We enjoy the sweeping views over fields and lush green pastures. This idyll is disturbed at harvest time at the latest, as huge machines are put to work. Nitrogen oxides and diesel exhaust pollute the air. Honey bees easily lose their bearings as a result. They find it harder to head for suitable flowers and often cannot find their way back to the hive.

We like to suppress how much fertilizer and liquid manure was previously applied to the fields. Pesticides such as glyphosate are extremely popular with German farmers. Many a German beekeeper has had to destroy his entire honey harvest because it was contaminated with glyphosate. We tend to ignore the fact that in the middle of idyllic farmland there are experimental fields where genetically modified plants are grown. The wind carries their pollen with it. However, such trial fields should actually be strictly separated from the fields of conventional and organic farmers.

Are glyphosate and pesticides found in urban honey?

City honey versus country honey part 2

Informed honey lovers deliberately do not choose zero-eight-fifteen honey from the supermarket. Most of these honeys are inferior because they have too high a water content and have not matured long enough in the hive. Their taste is adapted to the mainstream. Typical characteristics of single-variety honeys are neutralized. Imported honeys also consist of mixtures of several types of honey. They are no longer natural.

Honey connoisseurs who demand quality and aroma often bring back tasty honey specialties from small beekeepers in Greece. Some buy their honey directly from the beekeeper. Others trust a reliable stall holder at a weekly market. Delicatessen stores or the internet are also good sources for buying uncontaminated and delicious-tasting honey specialties.

The belief that country honey is fundamentally better than city honey is no longer tenable. The quality characteristics have shifted in favor of city honey in recent years. Our city honey can compete with almost any competitor from the countryside.

Echter Deutscher Honig Wanne-Eickel Sommertracht

Einzigartiger Honig direkt aus der Stadt Wanne-Eickel. Im Glas befindet sich nur das, was die Bienen in den Sommer-Monaten (Mai-Aug) gefunden haben.

Bei der Sorte Sommertracht hängen Geschmack, Geruch, Konsistenz und Farbe vom gesammelten Nektar ab. Angeflogen werden die von den Honigbienen bevorzugten Sommertrachtpflanzen wie beispielsweise Sonnenblumen, Himbeersträucher, Linden oder Lavendel. Der Sommertracht Honig schmeckt von lieblich bis herzhaft und die Färbung ist meist gold intensiver.

Aufgrund von Klimabedingungen und Regentagen, der Bepflanzung und Blütezeit ist unser natürlicher Honig immer eine kleine Überraschung.

Unser Honig aus Wanne-Eickel ist absolut regional und wird in aufwendiger Handarbeit in Deutschland hergestellt.

Dieser Honig wird zudem im Deutschen Imkerbund Glas abgefüllt, dies bedeutet wir stellen uns noch strengeren Qualitätskontrollen als gesetzlich vorgeschrieben. Damit du dir sicher sein kannst das die Qualität auch stimmt.

Teste jetzt die Qualität unseres Wanne-Eickel-Sommertracht-Honigs– er ist regional, er ist natürlich, er schmeckt genial. Er ist nicht erhitzt und ist ein echtes Naturprodukt!

Echter Deutscher Honig Sommertracht

– Flüssig
– Deutscher Imkerbund, unter 18% Wasseranteil
– DIB Glas
– DLG GOLD prämiert
– Echter Stadthonig aus Wanne-Eickel
– pestizidarm
– Ernte Sommer 2024
– Herkunftsland: Deutschland

10,99 €

21,98 € / kg

incl. VAT

Shop now

Contaminated honey often comes from the countryside

City honey versus country honey part 3

see also here: more of this

We don’t like to believe that blossom or country honey from Germany increasingly contains unpleasant substances such as pyrrolizidine alkaloids, but it doesn’t fit in with our view of honey production. Bee honey is considered one of the most natural spreads.

However, glyphosate or pyrrolizidine alkaloid residues are actually found in an alarming number of European honey samples. These are also found in bee pollen. Harmful ingredients in honey should be just as rare as honey adulterated with cheap honey. For honey lovers, it has long been clear that no one should be fooled by supposedly idyllic images. It is not only the bee mortality of recent years that has led to more and more hobby and small beekeepers moving their hives to urban areas and thus producing honey in the city.

On the one hand, bees are urgently needed here as pollinators. On the other hand, city honey has long been better than its reputation. For example, it has often been proven to contain less nitrogen oxides than country honey. Beekeepers in the city pay close attention to the location of their beehives. Thanks to the lack of factory farming and intensive agriculture with all its excesses, only road traffic is a burden here. However, no urban beekeeper would place his hives next to a highway.

Less contaminated honey comes from the urban area

Soil contamination with pesticides, herbicides or fungicides is significantly lower in urban areas. Many local authorities have also banned the application of glyphosate in urban areas. These are good prospects for beekeepers to produce less contaminated honey.

A striking example of this is our Wanuka Premium city honey. This comes from Wanne-Eickel. It presents itself as a beekeeping masterpiece in the field of city honey. Our city honey is proof that honey not only tastes delicious. In fact, our Wanuka Premium City Honey also suggests that the more diverse urban habitats are more suitable for “Apis mellifera” honey bees. Even experts confirm this.

In North Rhine-Westphalia – for example in the Wanne-Eickel area – there are ideal conditions for our honey bees. They benefit from lush, diverse and varied vegetation. In contrast, there are intensively farmed monocultures that lack field flowers and wild herbs. Our honey bees of the species “Apis mellifera carnic” collect less polluted pollen in the urban area. Our Wanuka premium honey is another example of how urban honey can be offered to people with a clear conscience.

Our premium honey has a convincing taste anyway. It also benefits from a variety of urban flavor impulses that are no longer available in the countryside. This city honey is therefore an aromatic-sweet tasting mixed honey, because a city beekeeper cannot guarantee varietal purity.

City honey is not a trend by chance

Many large German cities have long since recognized the trend. They produce and market urban honey. In doing so, they also ensure the preservation of honey bees and the pollination of flowers and fruit tree blossoms. We also market the city honey “Honey from Herne”.

The belief that urban honey must contain more nitrogen oxides and more glyphosate cannot be confirmed. On the contrary: on intensively farmed land, far more pollutants are introduced into bee honey than is assumed. It is not only the massive use of pesticides by conventional farmers that leaves its fatal traces in honey. Honey bees cannot tell the difference between an organic farmer cultivating a field and a farmer who has to massively increase his yields with agricultural poisons in order to survive.

It has been proven that none of the 300 pesticides tested, no residues from exhaust gases and no heavy metal inputs exceeding the limit value were found in tests involving urban honey. Our Wanuka premium honey is therefore also pleasingly low in pesticides and glyphosate. Our city honey from Wanne Eickel was awarded the top grade “GOLD” by the “Deutsche Landwirtschafts-Ges18ellschaft” (DLG) in 2017. In general, the honey products produced in our country are significantly lower in harmful substances than most types of honey produced abroad.

Stadthonig – Honey from Herne

one label – 11 beekeepers from one town.

City honey such as Herne honey is becoming increasingly well-known – and increasingly popular. It is now available from major cities such as Hamburg, Berlin and Munich, but also from many smaller towns, such as Herne. Beekeeping in urban areas has been around for a long time. But urban honey was only discovered and marketed as a quality product in its own right a few years ago.

Herne honey is a top-quality honey. It is proof that it is also possible to produce wonderful, first-class honey in a city. Honey from Herne is a top-quality honey brand.

We all know how dramatic the situation is for insects in general. But nobody really notices it in everyday life. The gradual disappearance of insects is not really noticeable, as they generally do not want to come into direct contact with humans. In our opinion, a longer journey by car is the most visible for everyone. Anyone who remembers traveling by car 5 to 8 years ago may know what the windscreen or radiator grille of the car looked like when you arrived at your destination. Today, this is much less the case. The decline of all species means that the pollination of flowers and fruit tree blossoms is no longer guaranteed. Where pollination is lacking, the fruit, the harvest and also the reproduction of all plants on our planet is lacking. The death of our small flying insects has incalculable consequences for us all. It is not without reason that the honeybee in particular is one of the most important beneficial animals for organic and plant diversity! We beekeepers in Herne take care of our beehives, we look after and nurture them. We make sure that the animals reproduce. When you buy our honey from Herne, you are directly supporting our work for sustainable cities and communities for the city.

What types of honey are available from Herne?

see also here: more of this

Herne city honey is the result of a cooperation between beekeepers from the Herne Beekeepers’ Association and Herne City Marketing. The city honey jars are labeled with a so-called guarantee strip. It bears the brand logo of the city of Herne. An undamaged warranty strip on the honey jar guarantees that it is unopened. With our city honey, we Herne beekeepers want to draw attention to the value and importance of honeybees for the city’s flora. They pollinate flowers throughout the city, including fruit tree blossoms. These animals are valuable.

Herne honey is liquid. It can change its consistency slightly during storage and become solid. However, this is not a bad thing, but a completely natural process. We do not add any artificial substances to our honey to artificially prevent this. Our honey can simply be made liquid again in a water bath, with the lid open and water at a maximum temperature of 40 degrees. The aroma and all the healthy ingredients are retained.

We also have different types of Herner honey in our range. Because Herne honey differs according to its origin. Honey from Herne comes from different parts of the city. It comes freshly harvested from the Herne district of Unser Fritz. A jar of honey like this contains the work of bees during the months of May, June and July. It couldn’t be fresher, better or more direct. You will also find honey from the Herne district of Wanne Süd with this spring and summer’s harvest. We even offer two different types of honey from the Horsthausen district with the harvest from this spring and summer, as they are produced by two different beekeepers. We hope to have all beekeepers on board soon. So if anyone is interested, please feel free to contact us.

The variety of flowers in the city also results in different honey colors. Naturally, purity of variety cannot be guaranteed in the urban area. All the flowers that grow in the city are flown to and processed into honey. The flavor of the honey therefore changes depending on the location. There are also differences in taste between the spring and summer honey. The taste spectrum is therefore broad. Dark honey tends to be spicier and light honey milder in taste. The wide variety of flavors in honey ensures intense enjoyment, so you are sure to discover your future favorite honey from Herne.

Beekeepers in Herne

A beekeeper, sometimes also called a honey man, looks after his hives. Separating female bees from male bees, the so-called drones, is one of the tasks of a beekeeper. Drones do not collect pollen or nectar. They also do not participate in work on the hive. Instead, they are fed by the females. They are dependent on the social exchange of food in the bee colony. After they reach sexual maturity, they fly out and look for a queen bee that is ready to mate. Later in the year, they are no longer allowed into the hive. They starve and die outside. The males of a bee colony only appear in the reproduction phase, during the so-called swarming period from April to August. Incidentally, drones do not have a bee stinger. Female bees in beekeeping and male bees therefore have completely different lives.

There are currently over 500 bee colonies in Herne. More than four bee colonies per square kilometer. That is an above-average number nationwide. One bee colony produces 20 to 30 kilograms of honey per year. That is the equivalent of 20,000 to 30,000 500g jars filled with high-quality honey from Herne. Incidentally, the city honey is not heated during the bottling process, as is usual with industrially bottled honey. Herne honey is a high-quality foodstuff that is completely natural and pure.

Herne honey with an effect

Honey consists of up to 80 percent sugar and about 20 percent water. Honey contains 2 different types of sugar, known as monosaccharides. They are specifically called fructose and glucose. It also contains a further 180 substances that make honey not only a tasty delicacy, but also a high-quality remedy. The proven substances include vitamins B1, B2, B6, C and H, as well as enzymes, enzymes, minerals, flavorings, acids, trace elements such as calcium, iron, zinc and potassium, but also amino acids and antibacterial substances such as penicillin B. Honey also contains secondary plant substances such as inhibins, so-called inhibitors, as well as tannins and essential oils. These ingredients combat the aggressive and cancer-causing free radicals in the human body.

Herne honey provides energy thanks to its fruit and glucose content. When consumed, the sugar content is immediately absorbed into the bloodstream and metabolized. Honey has an antibacterial effect due to the enzymes it contains, such as glucose oxidase. This enzyme is considered a germ killer. This is why honey also has an antiseptic effect. Milk or herbal teas with honey are well-known household remedies, as honey has an anti-inflammatory effect. Colds and sore throats can be reduced or combated by taking honey. The potassium present supports the drainage of the body via the kidneys. The various acids such as acetic acid, citric acid and lactic acid support digestion, among other things.

Honey is not the only bee product with an effect. There is also propolis, a resinous mass found in the flight holes of beehives. Like honey, it has an antibacterial effect, has an anti-inflammatory effect like honey and has an antiseptic effect like honey. Propolis is used by the honey bees themselves as protection against germs, mites and fungi, including at the entrances to the hive. On the other hand, the bees sting with their stingers to protect themselves from honey predators and attackers of the hive.

Look forward to propolis products in the coming year, which you can then buy from us in the Wanuka online store.