Sweet Mystery – North Carolina’s Bees Produce Purple Honey

OddityCentral ^ | 03/02/2023

[BenLurkin]

The Sandhills of North Carolina is said to be the only place in the world where bees produce purple honey, an iridescent concoction that looks more like alien goo than the sweet nectar we know and love.

It sounds like the stuff of legends, something to lure honey and beekeeping aficionados from around the world, but this extremely rare liquid is quite real. Purple honey is said to be sweeter than the amber kind and apparently has some subtle fruit notes as well.

Purple honey is a rare treat that usually commands a higher price than the amber kind, but with all the attention it has been getting online lately, demand has increased even more, with North Carolina beekeepers reporting orders coming in from all over the world.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Doesn’t polyvinyl chloride have a purplish cast and taste sweet?

[Clutch Martin]

Wisteria or Lavender perhaps.

[chajin]

Purple honey, Carolina’s bees
Gettin’ pollin from their fruit trees;
Weird color, and I don’t know why:
‘Cuse me while I givit a try
(wa-wa-waaah, wa-wa-waaah, wa-wa-waaah...)

[mikelets456]

I’m sure they’ll blame it on climate change——or whiteness.

[Nailbiter]

ping

[PGR88]

Many of those lucky enough to have tried purple honey claim that it actually tastes purple,

It was also described as tasting "fast," and "noisy."

[Buttons12]

Nobody knows how? Cmon. Check their saddlebags, it isn’t hard to identify what they’re bringing home.
You could also ask man’s best friend to sniff the honey and cross-check it against blueberries, leatherwood, etc.
Me, I’m smelling marketing here.

[BenLurkin]

"No man. It was more like...an adagio being played by Junior Walker, man."

[toast]

Reincarnation

[Bob434]

i suspect the bees are drinking ‘purple drank’

[mairdie]

Stories like these are what keeps me coming back to FR. I’ll be smiling all day remembering the funny comments from our clever Freepers.

[Islander7]

If you heat it, do you get purple haze?

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Purple honey is a rare treat that usually commands a higher price than the amber kind, but with all the attention it has been getting online lately, demand has increased even more, with North Carolina beekeepers reporting orders coming in from all over the world.

Coincidentally, food-coloring sales skyrocket in North Carolina.

[jerod]

The culprit?

[SunkenCiv]

Hive never heard of this before.

[Red Badger]

Purple Haze?.................

[gundog]

Someone on the Oregon coast has a hive that frequents my turtle pond, in the summer. Yum.