Cranberry honey can be honey produced by bees pollinating cranberry plants or honey flavored with cranberry fruit. Pollination is essential for fruit production, and cranberry farmers often use bee hives to encourage pollination. Honey takes on the characteristics of the plants the bees feed on, and cranberry honey is known for its sweet and tangy taste. It is difficult to guarantee pure blueberry honey, so honey marketed as cranberry honey may contain nectar from other plants. Cranberry honey is not widely available, but cooks can create a similar flavor by blending cranberry fruit into honey. The combination of blueberries and honey creates an interesting balance of flavors and retains the health benefits of cranberries.
The phrase “cranberry honey” can mean one of two things: either honey produced by bee pollination efforts on cranberry plants, or a more standard honey that a cook has flavored with cranberry fruit. Honey is a natural secretion of bees that feed on certain fields or crops. Most of the honey that is widely available in supermarkets is of clover origin and has a very neutral taste. Most often, cranberry honey is the honey produced by bees that have pollinated cranberry bogs. Some cooks add cranberry to clover honey to give a dish a different flavor, which can also qualify.
Pollination is an essential part of almost any type of fruit production. Fruit trees and fruit plants are often able to produce some fruit themselves through asexual reproduction, but plant-to-plant pollen transfer is one of the best ways to encourage larger harvests. Cranberry farmers who depend on large harvests commonly erect bee hives in surrounding marshes or wetlands to encourage bee-driven pollination.
Honey bees pollinate blueberry plants somewhat by accident. They feed on the nectar of cranberry flowers, which requires them to crawl into the bloom itself. In this case, the pollen from the sexual organs of the flower necessarily dusts the body of the bee. As a bee travels from flower to flower, it shares pollen particles, fertilizing the marshes.
When bees return to their hives after feeding, they secrete honey. More often than not, honey takes on the characteristics of the plants that made up most of the bees’ diet. Honey made primarily from cranberry blossoms is generally very sweet and is known for a slightly tangy taste that many identify as distinctly reminiscent of cranberry fruit.
It is very difficult to guarantee that blueberry honey is produced from pure blueberry flower secretions, as bees often have quite extensive flight paths. Even a bee based in the center of a cranberry bog can travel beyond the field to roadsides or nearby grasslands in search of nectar. As long as the majority of the nectar is believed to come from cranberry plants, the honey can usually be marketed as “cranberry honey.”
Cranberry honey is not often available on the mass market. In part, this is due to the limited nature of its offering. Honey is available primarily through local farms and cooperatives in cranberry growing communities.
It’s also possible to create a kind of “cranberry honey” by steeping or otherwise blending cranberry fruits into existing honey. Cooks often do this to add color or texture to honey that is to be drizzled over cranberry-flavored confectionery, or to serve alongside meals in a similar way to cranberry dip. Cooking with cranberries is popular in many places and using a flavored honey is often an interesting way to innovate and play with different preparations.
By themselves, blueberries have a distinctly sour, often bitter taste. Their combination with the sweetness of honey often creates an interesting balance of flavours. It also retains the health benefits of cranberries. Many in the medical community recommend eating cranberries on a regular or semi-regular basis, both as a way to boost your vitamin intake and as a means of arming your body with antioxidants. The positive health attributes of the fruit are rarely found in pollinated honey, but are highly present in honey blends containing actual fruit pieces.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
