Honey From Hungary - Selyemkóró Méz

While I was doing research for my new book, THE MONARCH: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly, I came upon milkweed honey. Hmm. I didn't think I'd ever seen that anywhere around here. And it turned out that all the information and photos I could rustle up on it, with one exception, were from Hungary.

Really? From one small country on the other side of the world? I wondered why Hungary had the corner on milkweed honey. I tried to see if I could somehow purchase some and have it sent here, but I had no luck with that.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is highly attractive to many
pollinators, including honey bees.

I talked with my go-to bee man, Jamie Walters, and he explained to me how any kind of flavored (called unifloral or varietal) honey earns the right to be labeled as a specific kind. He said you need approximately a 5-acre (or more) field of a single flower for the bees to forage in, for a honey to be considered a unifloral. Just how many large fields of milkweed have you seen lately?  Exactly.

Further research told me that in order to bear a label of a specific honey flavor, only 51% of the honey in the container has to be that kind, so be aware of this when buying varietal honeys.

Jamie does know someone not that far from us who has a milkweed field, and this summer he's going to take his bees there so he can produce some milkweed honey. I plan to go with him when he takes them, so stay tuned for that adventure!

A breakthrough

In the meantime, my childhood next-door neighbor and partner in crime, Kelly Gunderman Beahrs, private messaged me on Facebook, saying she knew someone who might be able to help in securing some of this Hungarian milkweed honey.

To make a long story short, I now have in my hands, a jar of it, which made a really roundabout trip to my house all the way from Hungary. (Hungary to U.K. to Texas to Ohio.) Now Kelly didn't have to do that, and her friend that helped didn't have to do that either, but I am ever so grateful that they did.

How does it taste? 

Prior to my tasting it, I'd read that milkweed honey was considered to be one of the most fragrant honeys of all, keeping that fragrance for a long period of time. It is slower to form sugar crystals and the flavor is high on the list of preferred taste by many.

Since the elusive milkweed honey had come so highly touted, I wondered if I would be in for a letdown when I was finally able to taste it. Not at all. It is indeed highly fragrant, as are the flowers from which it is made. It has the usual taste of honey with a hint of something I can't quite put my finger on yet, and it also has a bit of a bite to it, though that's not offensive at all. I've read that it mellows somewhat, with age.

I'm a supertaster, so I might detect flavors that others may not, so if you have the occasion to taste some milkweed honey for yourself, and decide that it merely "tastes like honey," I would not doubt your opinion. In the end, I love it, as I do most honeys. I am indebted to Kelly and her crew for making it possible to try it firsthand.


The questions burning in my mind now are these:

• Why is Hungary seemingly the only country to produce milkweed honey commercially?
• Why don't we produce it in the U.S., since milkweed is a native North American plant? 

I did a little research, and found that the agriculture industry is a very important part of Hungarian culture, due to the climate and soil conditions, which in turn, makes it favorable for beekeeping. Hungary, while only occupying slightly less than one per cent of the land area of all of Europe, supplies 10% of the honey to the continent and contributes 5% to the world honey trade. (2009 statistics)

Map source

Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) was introduced to Europe as an ornamental in 1629 and was first found in Hungary in 1736. It grows well in the Hungarian sandy soil and has established itself in those areas. (Great Hungarian plain, parts of Transdanubia, and county Bács-Kiskun.) It can have a long bloom time (June-September) in Hungary when the weather is hot and humid.

A drawback of milkweed, which is one reason beekeepers may stay away from utilizing it, is that the  bloom, by its anatomical design, is known to occasionally trap a honey bee by the leg. Bee deaths or loss of legs can occur, although reports I read said that bee loss is very minimal.

Overall, milkweed is considered to be a good honey plant and one that many bees prefer, if given the choice. Growing milkweed for honey production can only be good for the monarchs, too.

Monarch butterfly on swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)

• Just last year, a Canadian cooperative, The Cooperative Monark, located in Quebec, has begun producing milkweed honey commercially, thought to be the first on the North American continent: "Milkweed Honey: A First in America".

• A good article about the use of milkweed as a honey source can be found in Bee Culture: The Magazine of American Beekeeping, posted online on August 23, 2016: "Milkweeds As Honey Plants" by Connie Krochmal.

Sources:
http://biofizika.pote.hu/docs/farma/file/EJPSB_1(2)125-151.pdf
http://tudasalapitvany.hu/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Beekeeping_in_Hungary.pdf

Ohio Gets a New License Plate to Benefit the Monarch Butterfly (and I helped!)

Today was a special day for me and for Ohio monarch enthusiasts. Many didn't even know it was a special day until it got here. Today was the first day that citizens with a vehicle registered in the state of Ohio could purchase a specialized license plate that will directly benefit the monarch butterfly.

Here's how it happened:


Thanks, Illinois

In March of last year, I saw an online news article from The News-Gazette (Champaign-Urbana, IL) about a specialized license plate being planned for the state of Illinois.

I wondered if Ohio had such a plate and made a search on the website of the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles. No such plate existed.

There was a plate benefiting Ohio's Nature Preserves, featuring a monarch butterfly nectaring on a coneflower, but the funds collected for that plate don't specifically go toward the monarch. I looked further on the site to see what needed to be done in order to have a new organizational plate created. It didn't seem too difficult, so I made a phone call to the BMV in Columbus to find out if they were aware of anyone else already working on one for the monarch. There were no efforts in progress that they were aware of.


First things first

Rep. Tony Burkley

There were several steps required to create an organizational plate, with the first one being to get a state legislator to introduce a bill. My husband and I knew our state representative, Tony Burkley, personally, since we went to high school with both him and his wife. I contacted him in April and explained what I was wanting to do.

It was late in the session, with only a few days left to get the bill introduced, but Representative Burkley got the job done. It was passed by the 131st General Assembly and on June 16th, Governor John Kasich signed the bill; 90 days later, on September 14th it would officially become law.


Collecting signatures

The next step was to collect at least 150 signatures on a special petition - signatures of those who had registered vehicles in the state of Ohio, who potentially could purchase the license plate. This made me a tiny bit uncomfortable, because I'm not someone who likes to be approached to sign anything myself. But it's amazing how assertive you can be when you're passionate about something, like I am about the monarch.

Though a few were not willing to give their driver's license number (a requirement), so many more were enthusiastic about helping make this a reality. I posted about it on my Facebook page and in the Facebook monarch forums and several people stepped forward and offered to help collect signatures: Sarah Roney Dalton, Don Byrne, Sandy Cobb, Kara Fritz, Janet Denning, Jamie Walters, Melinda Huseby Krick, Richard Moore, Lori Gogolin, Debbie Hartwig Tope, Ashley Tope, Roman Baumle, Brandi Eberle, Karla Erford Treece, and Melissa Downs Moser. (I hope I haven't forgotten anyone who sent me some!)

Since I wanted to be sure to have more than enough verified signatures (yes, they DO check each and every one), I submitted 250, instead of the minimum 150.


Where will the money go?

The license plate costs an extra $25, of which $15 goes to the benefiting organization and the remaining $10 to the Ohio BMV. I wanted the monies collected to remain in the state of Ohio, so I began investigating possible organizations that could make good use of it.

I chose Monarch Wings Across Ohio, which is a part of the national organization, The Pollinator Partnership. Several locations across Ohio are participants in the monarch studies being conducted, in fact, Ohio is the first state to be a part of the national program Monarch Wings Across the U.S. Included in the program are such sites as Holden Arboretum, Cleveland Metroparks, and many others.

The recipient organization had to provide an affidavit to the BMV as well as the logo that goes on the license plate.


Next...

I procured all the necessary documents and sent them off to the BMV in Columbus on September  12 by Certified Mail.

Whew.

My part was now finished and it was up to the BMV to take the baton and finish the race.


Finally...

I got an email on December 8th, giving me the good news that enough signatures had been verified, the license plate design had been finalized, and the plate would be available for purchase on January 11, 2017. And here we are:

Photo by Lacinda Conley

This is a graphic image of what my own personalized license plate will look like. Since we had just bought a new (to us) car in December, I had to go to the license bureau in person to register it and order my plates. It can take anywhere from two weeks to a month to receive the actual plates once the order is placed.

Current license plate fees in Ohio as listed on the BMV website are:

• New registration/standard plates & registration/plate renewal:
  • Passenger vehicle: $34.50.
  • Motorcycle: $28.50.
  • House vehicle/moped: $24.50.
  • Non-commercial trailer: Fee is based on weight.
• Replacements:
  • 1 license plate: $10.50.
  • 2 license plates: $11.75.
  • Decals: $4.50.
• Plate transfer: $4.50.

The extra fee for the monarch license plate is $25, with $15 of that going to Monarch Wings Across Ohio. If you do want to personalize it, that will cost another $50. Besides providing funds that will help the monarch butterfly and by proxy, other pollinators, the license plate will help create awareness for the plight the monarch faces.

Once again, thank you to all who worked together to make this possible. I've been asked by several others how to go about doing the same thing in their state and since each state is different, my suggestion would be to go to your state's Bureau of Motor Vehicles website (some states call it the Department of Motor Vehicles, or DMV) and find out what your state requires for the creation of a specialized or organizational license plate.

In many cases, all it takes is one ordinary citizen being willing to do what it takes to make it happen. You will be providing a means for many people to help the cause through the purchase of the plates. I encourage vehicle owners in Ohio to purchase one of these plates. Even though the sale of only 25 plates per year are required to keep the monarch plate in production, we can do better than that.

Do it for the monarchs.

When It Snows, Make Snow Cream!

We got our first real snow of the season Sunday night. There was that day a couple of weeks ago where you could see some snowflakes if you looked real hard, but this was a snow that accumulated. We got not quite two inches before it tapered off.

I was sitting on the couch, working on reviewing some of the edits on my new book that will be out in April, THE MONARCH: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly, and I had a light bulb moment.

I CAN MAKE SNOW CREAM!

This is something that has taken me over 59 years to experience. That's just crazy. I hadn't even heard of it until a couple of years ago and I just kept forgetting about doing it until tonight. So I jumped up and quickly mixed up the first part, then went outside to gather up some fresh snow.

This was the perfect snow for making Snow Cream!

It couldn't have taken more than five minutes, start to finish. Now I'm not a vanilla ice cream lover, nor do I particularly like homemade ice cream, so this is isn't something I'd crave, but it was sure fun to do and we'll be doing it the next time we have the grandkids here and we've got fresh snow on the ground.

Here's what you do:

SNOW CREAM

1 cup milk
⅓ cup white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

Mix up the ingredients in a mixing bowl using an electric hand mixer. Mix until well blended. Put the bowl with the mixture into the freezer while you go get the ice cream. Gather up about 8 cups of fresh snow.

From this point on, you have to work fast, because it will melt fairly quickly. Add the snow to the mixture in the bowl and whip it. It should be thick enough that you can use an ice cream scoop to form a ball.

Scoop into bowls and add sprinkles, chocolate syrup, or whatever your favorite topping is. Eat and enjoy!

My chocoholic husband added Hershey's Syrup on top.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*I would give credit to whomever came up with this recipe if I only knew. I looked up several recipes online and they were all the same, with no credit given, so this is undoubtedly older than I am and may be in the "public domain" by now.