I don’t know the place I bought this jar of honey. It appears prefer it’s been hanging round for a very long time. The label is worn and it says “$3.50” on the plastic lid, so the worth dates it not less than 5 years. You can barely get a sweet bar for that worth anymore.

An eight ounce jar of honey doesn’t final lengthy in my home–I really like the stuff–so I’m undecided why I’ve saved it so lengthy with out consuming it. But right here it’s in my cabinet and I used it in my tea the opposite day and thought, wow, that is good.

I referred to as the quantity on the label for “Bailey Hill Honey.” The house owners identify was on the label, too, and when Ed Chapman answered his landline, we spent a while determining the place I got here throughout his honey. He lives close to Ellicotville, and not less than eight years in the past, I went that approach to take my grandsons tenting. He mentioned he bought his honey to a farmstand close to the campground round that point and that should be the place I picked it up. But eight years in the past? I can’t think about that jar of honey sat in my cabinet for eight years, however then I’m reminiscence challenged within the quaint means we turn out to be reminiscence challenged because the years cross.

The honey was scrumptious even when it was outdated, however that’s the great factor about honey. Honey by no means perishes. Something tasted like dwelling in it—pure western New York. Ed says he’s been making honey a very long time, and it’s pure, native honey, however you’ve by no means heard of it, I’m positive, as a result of Ed doesn’t ship, promote on Facebook, or have a web site or promote to farmstands exterior of his city. He thought it fairly odd that I’d name him out of the blue from distant to ask him a few jar of honey I purchased a very long time in the past. When I requested him if he may ship me just a few bottles, he mentioned he’d must look into it. Shipping isn’t one thing he does. Ever.

I really like this story as a result of it’s so refreshing to run into somebody who has outdated methods from higher days. Ed Chapman doesn’t know the very first thing about Instagram and that’s why I like him. I like supporting small companies and particularly companies who nonetheless suppose it’s 1954. If he’s making a revenue with out utilizing a mobile phone or a publish workplace, then hats off to him.

There’s lots of good honey in our a part of the state. Panama Bee Honey is a favourite too, though I haven’t had a nasty jar of honey from our area.

I drove to Florida some years in the past and stopped on the Florida-Georgia border to purchase some Tupelo honey. Tupelo honey is among the rarest honeys on the planet, and for hundreds of years it was an under-the-radar delicacy eaten solely in sure areas of Georgia and Florida, the place the white Ogeechee tupelo tree blooms ten days a yr. That is, till the Seventies when the rock star Van Morrison launched his album, Tupelo Honey. Ever since this flash of stardom the honey has been sought out by eaters and prized for its butteriness and floral spice.

The factor to notice about wild flower honey is it may come from anyplace on the planet; the identify merely implies that the bees took nectar from native flora. On the opposite hand, tupelo honey can solely come from the blossoms of tupelo bushes, which develop in particular areas alongside the Apalachicola River in Florida and Georgia.

We ought to all be massive connoisseurs of honey. It’s in our genes. The Egyptians have been followers, nevertheless it’s actually as outdated as written historical past, relationship again to 2100 B.C. the place it was talked about in Sumerian and Babylonian cuneiform writings. Its identify comes from the English phrase “hunig,” and it was the primary and most widespread sweetener utilized by man. Honey was valued extremely and infrequently used as a type of forex, tribute, or providing. In the eleventh century A.D., German peasants paid their feudal lords in honey and beeswax. That’s a enterprise mannequin I can respect–honey for lease.

I by no means fail to purchase a jar of honey wherever I journey. The finest I’ve tasted was from Greece; there’s simply so many wildflowers there. The fact is, honey apart, is that we’d like bees. They immediately contribute to a 3rd of America’s meals: apples, peaches, lettuce, squashes, melons, broccoli, cranberries, tree nuts, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, plums, clementines, tangerines, sunflowers, pumpkins, and alfalfa for beef. The downside is that they die. The variety of colonies within the U.S.–2.7 million–is lower than half what it was on the midpoint of the twentieth century, and it has remained flat because the early 2000s. Let’s hope that’s a wrestle we win.

If you’re ever close to Ellicotville, cease in and purchase a jar of honey from Ed Chapman at Bailey Hill Honey. He made 600 kilos of the stuff this yr. And I’m right here to let you know, eight years in, it’s nonetheless scrumptious.