Glossary
A sweet, sticky liquid excreted by plant-sucking insects (aphids, scale insects, leafhoppers) that bees collect and process into honeydew honey. Unlike floral honey, honeydew originates from insect excretions on plant sap rather than flower nectar, producing a darker honey with a distinct malty or woody flavor.
Most honey begins with flower nectar. Honeydew honey takes a completely different path. Sap-sucking insects (primarily aphids and scale insects) feed on the sugar-rich phloem sap of trees, extracting amino acids and excreting the excess sugar as honeydew droplets on leaf surfaces. Bees collect these sweet droplets just as they would nectar, processing them in the hive through the same enzymatic and evaporative processes. The result is a legitimate honey, but one with a dramatically different origin story and flavor profile.
Honeydew honey is typically very dark (dark amber to nearly black), does not crystallize easily (due to its different sugar ratios), and has a complex, malty, woody, or molasses-like flavor with less sweetness than floral honeys. Famous examples include German Black Forest honey (from spruce and fir aphid honeydew), Greek pine honey (from Marchalina hellenica scale insects on pine trees), and Turkish chestnut honeydew.
Honeydew honey generally contains higher mineral content (potassium, magnesium, iron), higher oligosaccharide content (complex sugars with prebiotic properties), lower glucose and higher melezitose and maltose content, and higher antioxidant capacity than most floral honeys. These differences make it especially valued in German, Greek, and Eastern European markets where it often commands premium prices above floral honeys.
Yes. Honeydew honey meets all official definitions of honey. The Codex Alimentarius defines honey as 'the natural sweet substance produced by Apis mellifera bees from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant-sucking insects on the living parts of plants.' Honeydew honey falls squarely within this definition.
Honeydew honey has a lower glucose-to-fructose ratio and contains complex sugars (melezitose, erlose, maltose) that resist crystallization. These sugars do not form crystal nucleation sites as readily as glucose, keeping the honey liquid for much longer than high-glucose floral honeys like clover or canola.
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