I am from Serbia, the neighbour country of Bulgaria. We also have honeydew
that some beekeepers and people call "pine honey".
Around ten years ago, one beekeeping colleague attended a beekeeping
conference in Bulgaria and later we talked about that. There are oak
forests in Bulgaria that cover almost 60km long Black Sea coast. In town
Carevo, the conference about oak honeydew is held every year, it is the
main topic of the conference. Even more, on the invitation card for the
conference is a acorn and oak branch.

It is clear that honeydew is not from the pine but from oak trees, but I
understand that many people still make mistake and call that honey pine
honeydew honey. I can also understand that in time when William Lord
visited Bulgaria, it still wasn't enough clear about that type of honey. In
Serbia it is also still unclear now, even among the beekeepers. Some our
beekeeping authorities try to teach people about that but it seems that
process is slow.

In Bulgaria, you can buy "pine honey" but it is not product from beehive,
it is made from pine needles cooked with sugar syrup. On the labels of the
jar with that "honey" is printed in the fine print that it is not beehive
product.

Regarding honeydew from Greece, I am not detailed informed, but I think
that maybe there are pine species that attract some insects to secrete
honeydew, but it is the other type of honeydew. Oak honeydew is a product
of the secretion of oak leaves, it is without the influence of insects.

Last year, we had very strong secretion of oak honeydew, but only in some
areas in Serbia, and for short time, so the crops usually weren't so
significant, but still enough to influence the color of the honey to become
dark. That my beekeeping colleague, mentioned above, showed me a oak tree
in the park in his town, with leaves covered with honeydew and full of
bees. I've never seen so many bees on oak tree. In fact that was not
domestic oak tree, but maybe Canadian oak or something similar, leaves are
larger then in our domestic oak.

regards
Predrag

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html