Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Kashrus alert: Honeydew honey is not kosher- Some honey processors produce both in the same facility, and it is heated. Beware when buying honey, etc in health food stores.

Honeydew Honey- is not permitted, as it's an extraction from other insects, it does not become permitted just because the bee collected it.


"Honeydew" is a classification of honey that Bee Collecting Honeydew honey from Oak leafrefers to honey produced by honeybees collecting nectar that is exuded from another insect such as an aphid or scale insect. It is quite common in a number of countries and the best known is honeydew from the Black Forest in Germany. World wide honeydew can be referred to variously as "forest honey", "Pine honey", "Fir honey" etc. and may sometimes be referred to by the specific species of tree producing the honeydew. 

New Zealand Beech Honeydew honey is one of New Zealand's premium export honeys. It has a history of export to Europe and specifically Germany since the earlyBee collecting honeydew honey1970s. There are several honeydew producing scale insects in New Zealand inhabiting a variety of plants. However most of these are small honeydew sources or intermittent production. The beech forests of the South Island are a different story however. Two species of beech tree inhabited by two species of honeydew insect (the sooty beech scales) from the Margarodidae family produce New Zealand's largest single exported honey crop. The beech trees are Black Beech (Nothofagus solandri) and Red Beech (N. fusca). The two insects are Ultracoelostoma assimileand U. brittini. U. brittini tends to inhabit the trunks and larger branches, while U. assimileis recorded (C.F.Morales) as favouring the upper branches and twigs, thus U.brittini is the insect most likely to be encountered by the casual observer wandering in the beech forests.

The black colour of trees and plants with a honeydew source is due to the growth of a blacksooty mould (Capnodium fungus) on the surplus nectar exuding over the plant and sometimes even the ground. Particles of this fungus are typically found in honeydew being referred to as "honeydew elements" and are used as a part of the identification as honeydew.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So whats the issue here?
All bee's honey is Kosher no matter where they get their food from.

Anonymous said...

Rav Vaye in his Sefer cites a list of poskim that forbid honeydew honey.

Henry Weiss said...

Honeydew from South America is kosher certified by mercokosher lemehadrin.

Unknown said...

Hmmmm..... I have some issues with the honesty and integrity of people reproducing my photos (the two above showing honeydew collection - I am the photographer) without my permission. Ditto the text that I wrote on this topic.
And then there is the issue of "mana from heaven" a substance the Jews survived on during their banishment to the desert... also known as crystallized honeydew!!
And then the topic of oligosaccharides... long chain sugar molecules, abundant in honeydew, that provide food for the probiotic bacteria in our digestive systems, without which we could not survive.
Having such a dogmatic outlook on this matter is relegated to those of little understanding full of self importance.
If you have any integrity, you will post this unmodified.