This is a listing for 825g (29 oz) of Portuguese comb honey packaged in a glass jar. Perfect to bring sweets for your family.
These are glass jars that we cram from top to bottom with capped honeycombs chunks. We then add just enough raw honey to fill in the void spaces. Both comb and honey come from the same hive, keeping colour and flavour as pristine as you can get. The end result is a treat for all true honey lovers.
# Why comb honey?
Honey aficionados will tell you that honey tastes specially delicious and fresh when eaten from combs. Just as honey, the flavour of beeswax also varies according to what bees are foraging at the time. This adds a richness to the flavour that extracted honey doesn't have.
Combs are a great way to eat straight honey. You just put them in your mouth and suck the honey out. Some people also chew on the beeswax afterwards, much like a chewing gum, and then discard it.
# How we handle our honey
DrApis' pure, artisanal raw honey is unheated, unpasteurized, unprocessed and chemical free. Produced and extracted using exclusively traditional methods, preserving all the natural vitamins, enzymes, phytonutrients and other nutritional elements produced by bees.
# How Portuguese bees make it
DrApis' honey is made in Alentejo (Southern Portugal) by the local subspecie of honey bees, Apis mellifera iberiensis. These bees work during Spring and Summer, gathering nectar from the annual wildflowers that sprout in Alentejo's dehesa, under cork oaks (Quercus suber) and holm oaks (Quercus ilex).
# Colour and flavour
Unlike industrial honey packagers, DrApis does not mix honey to normalize batches. Our honey comes straight from the hive. Thus, honey colour and flavour will change with every new harvest, depending on what bees are foraging at the time.
During Spring our honey is light coloured with a delicate and mild flavour, derived from a floral source dominated by clovers (Trifolium spp.), wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum raphanistrum) and lavender (Lavandula stoechas luisieri). Later, as we reach the end of Summer, honey gets darker and acquires a bolder and richer flavour, coming from the nectar of late blooming flowers, mostly thistles (Cynara spp.) and pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium).
When the honey season is over we store each batch separately and sell them on a first in first out basis. Those who purchase DrApis honey regularly will be able to taste the full spectrum of nectar coming from South Portuguese wildflowers.
# Ripe honey
Nectar is a watery substance with a sugar content dominated by sucrose. To turn it into honey, bees place it in honeycombs, add enzymes that convert sucrose into simple sugars (glucose and fructose) and let excess water evaporate. This renders a supersatured simple sugars solution we all know as honey. The sugar fermentation and water evaporation processes take a week or longer. When bees sense that a comb cell is ripe they seal it with a wax lid.
In the urge for bigger profits from more frequent harvests, industrial producers tend to pick honey before it is ripe. Unripe honey spoils easily due to the high water content and lacks nutritional elements that only develop during fermentation.
At DrApis we let nature take its time. We let bees brew their honey until the fermentation and dehydration processes are fully complete. This renders a mature and nutrient-rich honey with down to 16% humidity level, ready to be stored for millennia without spoiling.
# Crystallization
DrApis honey is packaged in glass containers instead of plastic to eliminate BPA (bisphenol A) exposure and allow for easy decrystallization.
Raw honey crystallizes over time, turning from liquid to a semi-solid state. This is a natural process that is actually a good indicator of the honey's purity. Crystallized honey can be consumed as is, there is no loss in flavour or any nutritional property. However, if you wish to decrystallize honey, simply place the glass jar in a pot of warm (circa 40 °C) water and let it gently and gradually warm up until all honey re-liquefies.
# Storage
Store at 0-21 °C (32-70 °F) away from sunlight or any heat source.
To delay crystallization keep honey at 0-10 °C (32-50 °F).
# Product specifications
Gross weight 1091g (38.5 oz)
Net weight 825g (29 oz)
# Shipping
Items will be shipped through expedited mail with tracking. Expected delivery times are:
- Europe: 3 business days.
- Rest of the World*: 5 business days.
* Delivery may take 15 business days or longer in countries with tight or lengthy customs' inspections.
# Special precautions
Do not feed honey to children under 1 year of age.
Do not consume honey if you have allergies to bees or bee products.
Do not consume honey if you suffer from diabetes.