Landwards Summer 2021
Profession: Honey
Honey technology: from bee skep to industrial laboratory On 21st April, Nicholas Corker tuned into the IAgrE’s Food Engineering Group seminar on honey technology with the aim of better understanding the depth and diversity of the honey industry, he was not disappointed. The seminar, with five presentations, was ably convened by Daniel Hefft with an international attendance of 175 participants, representing the complex value chain associated with that seemingly simple natural food stuff: honey. Engineering challenges From a food engineering perspective honey presents a number of 32
challenges, it is a viscous natural product derived largely from a dispersed yet sophisticated craft industry dependent upon a symbiosis between apiarist, bee and flower. It is traded locally and globally in raw and composite states, transported in bulk and subject to regulation and import tests, variable in quality and value, associated with health and wellbeing and open to adulteration.
Sustainable and traditional methods The meeting opened with a fascinating talk from St Kliment Ohridski University on traditional and sustainable bee keeping in Macedonia. We learnt of the production process including the manufacture of skeps from hazel and daub and of apitherapy - the value of inhaling the atmosphere created
