Honey is one of the most treasured food items, whether drizzled over porridge or used to treat a sensitive throat. The consumption of honey is consistently rising; however, rivalry from less expensive imports and obstructions to entering the ‘exceptional’ honey market could prevent honey producers from benefitting.
A large portion of the honey available in the supermarket comes from different countries, where it is less expensive to produce. In any case, a developing interest in single flower or monofloral honey – where the honey bees collect pollen and nectar from a single type of blossom – could present another market for the worldwide beekeepers. These monofloral honey varieties have trademark flavors and textures, besides offering numerous medical advantages including high centralizations of antioxidant compounds. Therefore, monofloral honey can command premium costs.
What is Monofloral Honey?
Monofloral honey differs from the multifloral or polyfloral honey by the predominance of nectar collected from a single flower. It is the consequence of two conditions. In the first place, the target plant should prevail, so the honey bees have barely any choice of plants. Second, the beekeeper should match the time of hive introduction and the comb harvesting to coincide with the blooming period. This is finished via cautiously noticing the blossoming time of the targeted plant and could be expected overlapping sprouting times of other nectar-producing plants also.
Every monofloral honey is like a natural reduction of the beneficial nectar of its companion flowering plant. However, in some conditions, timing becomes less critical while producing unifloral honey. When the plant is commercially grown in large quantities, the beehives are shifted there for the blossoming period.
What Are the Characteristics of Monofloral Honey?
Monofloral honey is more costly and hard to obtain; in all actuality, it has the characteristics that separate it from other honey varieties. The colour, flavour, aroma and surprisingly beneficial properties of monofloral honey make it stand apart from polyfloral honey varieties.
To decide if it is monofloral honey or not, it is essential to complete pollen and other tangible analysis, through which the beekeeper can decide the types of honey acquired. In this way, it is challenging to figure out what kind of honey it is without these dissects.
Besides this, it is necessary to keep in mind that in monofloral honey, no essences are added; that is, they don’t taste or smell like a particular flower.
Types of Monofloral Honey –
- Acacia Honey
- Alfalfa Honey
- Aster Honey
- Avocado Honey
- Basswood Honey
- Blueberry Honey
- Buckwheat Honey
- Chestnut Honey
- Clover Honey
- Eucalyptus Honey
- Fireweed Honey
- Goldenrod Honey
- Lavender Honey
- Linden Honey
- Orange Blossom Honey
- Rosemary Honey
- Sage Honey
- Sourwood Honey
- Tupelo Honey and many more…
To keep the honey generally unadulterated, beekeepers should be exceptionally mindful of putting new hives close to the target plant when it begins to produce nectar. Then, at that point, remove the hives and extract the nectar before the following set of plants bloom. But increasing competition in this profitable market has made it hard for beekeepers to hold a solid place in providing the best quality, genuine and raw honey products since there is no speedy and straightforward way to demonstrate that their honey is monofloral. The committed research in this field states that these simple-to-utilize symptomatic technology in honey business can immediately find out whether it is monofloral honey or multifloral in the beginning.
The Power of Monofloral Technology?
Monofloral technology shows an incredible guarantee for a broad scope of insightful applications. Monoforal honey varieties are tested using two more established spectroscopic techniques; Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier Transform Infrared and fluorescence spectroscopy. The spectroscopic profiles produced by the various samples were then taken care of into an AI algorithm to prepare a model to classify the floral origin of unknown samples naturally. During these tests, when the samples are introduced, both fluorescence and SORS could predict the floral type with over 90% accuracy. The most astonishing thing about this technology is that this is a non-intrusive procedure that doesn’t require the sample jar to be opened.
Helping & Protecting the Farmers –
This technology has a solid potential to solve the problem – a continuous fight against adulterated items. Ordinarily, this happens when unadulterated honey is mixed with modest high-fructose corn syrup or different sugars. These simple, cost-effective devices are best to build up authenticity and help honey bee farmers maintain the quality of their products and increment their worth.
The Ultimate Objective
With the positive outcomes from this technology, honey businesses are now using this technology to know the quality of their monofloral honey. It is significant that the finished result is simple to utilize and can quickly offer the client a response they comprehend. Utilizing this technology will help honey companies offer the best quality products to the customers so that they can live a better and healthier future.