Organic honey
In Bona Mel, we are organic beekeepers that we package our honey. For the production of organic honey the manipulation of the hives should be done in a natural way and for obtaining the seal that certifies such quality, it is necessary to meet certain requirements, which fundamentally are:
The location area where the hives or apiaries are
The hives in order to produce organic honey must be far away from areas of extensive farming, from urban areas or from sources of contamination and should be preferably located in high mountain areas or at the wilderness. In this manner, as organic beekeepers we ensure the absence of contamination in the pollen of flowers, an essential element for the production of honey.
The visiting area to feed, mainly that is the work done by the worker bees when they leave the hive to collect nectar and pollen, is usually no more than 1 km away from the hive, although a worker bee can fly to more than 3 km away.
The feeding of honeybees
The feeding of bees oriented to the production of organic honey should be limited to the honey and pollen of their own harvesting. We should completely avoid the use of artificial nutrition with non-organic sugar, any flavour enhancers or colouring. The use of such type of cheaper food makes impossible obtaining the organic certificate of the honey harvested and it reduces the quality of honey.
The treatment of pests and diseases
The extinction of pests and diseases and any preventive cures in organic apiaries must be based on natural treatments.
No chemical products should ever be used, nor chemically synthesized drugs, like insecticides, nor antibiotics for the treatment of diseases, since these are transmitted to the honey.
The material of the beehives
The hives must be manufactured from natural products and they cannot be painted with oil products, since the components of oil are harmful to the bees.
The method of extracting honey
The extraction process of organic honey is made in cold, must be done at the hive’s same temperature, and should be collected by decanting, being softly filtered to maintain all its properties and respecting the standards required by the international regulations of organic quality and other control entities, in order to keep intact all properties of honey.
In short, organic bee-keeping is clearly different from the conventional one, by the handling of the hives, by the materials used and the large amount of labour necessary, almost double than in the conventional bee-keeping, since the organic beekeepers should dedicate themselves to the production of organic honey throughout all the year, due to the care the bees require.
Therefore, Bona Mel produces an exquisite raw organic honey, a solid, hard, compact, crystallized and creamy honey, all clear and explicit indicators of a totally natural honey and with all its properties intact.
In Bona Mel, we offer the following types of honey according to its botanical origins:
