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The quality and
properties of the honey depend on the flowers visited. Pictured
left a honey bee is collecting nectar from
Scorpionweed a flower rich in both nectar and pollen that
attract bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects like a
magnet.
Scorpionweed honey is an amber or sometimes light green colour,
with a delicate aroma.
Honey has
long been known to have anti-bacterial properties and is used in wound dressings. Different honeys
vary in their
effectiveness depending partly on the plants the bees visited to
make it. The
National Botanic Garden of Wales are screening wildflower honey for activity against two of the most common hospital-acquired
infections, the bacteria
MRSA and Clostridium
Difficile. They
find out exactly what plants the bees visited to make the honey
by extracting plant DNA from the honey and
comparing it to their
Flower DNA Database. The hope is to
pinpoint which plants make honey the most effective against
infections in humans and bees. It has been estimated by
Friends of the
Earth that without bees it would cost UK farmers around £2
billion per year to pollinate their crops. |
