Country

Netherlands

The Netherlands hides some surprisingly old honey traditions inside a thoroughly modern landscape. The Veluwe turns purple with common heather in late summer, producing a thick, strongly flavored honey so distinctive that Slow Food considers Veluwe heather honey a threatened traditional food. Beekeepers need permission to bring colonies onto some heathlands, and the honey's jelly-like texture makes extraction unusually difficult. Elsewhere, Dutch bees work the fruit orchards of the Betuwe, willow and bramble in the Biesbosch, and city parks and gardens. But the biggest bee story may be on Texel. Wageningen University describes the European dark honeybee as the Netherlands' only indigenous honeybee, now surviving principally on the island, where outside bee colonies are restricted. Researchers are currently studying just how genetically pure that surviving population actually is. Honey, orchards, heath and a disappearing native bee make the Netherlands much richer than “Dutch wildflower honey.”