Why bees in the USA make the wrong honey

Sandhill in North Carolina is the only place in the world where bees produce purple honey. According to eyewitnesses, it looks more like alien slime than the sweet nectar that we know and love.

There are many strange varieties of honey in the world — from expensive but bitter Corbezzolo honey to meat honey produced by vulture bees. However, none of them looks as strange as purple honey from North Carolina. Despite its strange appearance, it is said to taste good. It is said that purple honey is sweeter than usual and has noticeable fruity notes.

Some photos of purple jars of honey have recently spread in social networks and caused a heated discussion about whether this is real honey or not. But residents of North Carolina confirmed: this is a very real, albeit hard-to-reach delicacy. Such honey is difficult to get even in North Carolina, but its existence is irrefutable.

The color of honey, from light yellow to dark amber, depends on the type of flower from which the nectar is obtained, but in the case of purple honey, the cause has yet to be determined. Some claim that it is obtained from blueberries or blueberries, although scientists and beekeepers dispute this assumption, arguing that bees do not have strong enough "teeth" to bite through the skin of these berries. Others say that the flowers of the kudzu plant, or the lobed pueraria, give an unusual color, and some are convinced that the flowers of the leather scumpia change the color of honey. In fact, no one yet knows exactly the reason why honey from Sandhill changes color.

According to Professor John Ambrose of North Carolina State University, purple honey may be the result of a chemical reaction between acid in bees' stomachs and aluminum. Apparently, flowers in coastal North Carolina contain more aluminum than anywhere else, which explains why this rare honey is produced only in North Carolina. Some of those lucky enough to taste purple honey claim that it actually has a "purple" taste with noticeable tones of grapes or berries.

Purple honey is a rare delicacy, and therefore it costs more than usual. And now that it has become popular on the Internet, the demand for it has grown even more: beekeepers from North Carolina report orders coming from all over the world. According to Diz, he barely coped with the orders coming from different countries, and he even had to close the order acceptance several times to make sure that he would not sell more honey than he has in stock. Now, as the beekeeper says, he has a few more unsent orders left — and his stock will run out.