Williams Fuest, the young founder of Exmoor Honey popped into Ruxstons first shop in Horner, and enthusiastically started talking to us about his raw and unpasteurised honey and the multitude of benefits it has. Myself and Fraser made it clear we were not experts in Honey and would need to look into it far more before we could confidently talk about it to customers. I thought it would be a good thing to start with the basics of honey.
The basics of raw honey:
Honey is produced by Honey bees in their colony, this is called a Hive. Honey is produced when the honey bees refine the sugary secretions of plants or even other insects. This process takes place within the bees themselves through a process of regurgitation and enzymatic activity. The honey is stored in the honeycomb which is made up of beeswax. The honeycomb is made by the female honeybees from a gland which is execreted, this wax hardens almost instantly to create the honeycomb. Some bees that are not honey bees but produce honey store their honey in different ways and not a honeycomb but this is not something we offer at this time.
Honey is traditionally used as a sweet spread, this can be on bread or a variety of cakes. Honey has a very similar sweetness level to table sugar as a result Honey has also been used as a sugar replacement for centuries. Although refined sugar became very popular as things became mass produced, recently more people have been promoting the use of honey as a sweetener in tea and other hot drinks.
Sedgemoor Honey
Interestingly, in recent years some honey producers in the far east have tried to speed up honey production by directly feeding bees sugar, of course this removes any floral taste from the honey, as there are no flowers involved! This leaves a very watery and tasteless product. This is why it is quite important to know exactly where your honey has come from. We stock one other brand of honey that is not Williams Exmoor Honey, and that is Sedgemoor Honey. Sedgemoor have a network of hives from across the Taunton Deane area with a good level of traceability.
The not so basics of raw honey:
Honey has a range of anti bacterial properties, however the level of effectiveness that the honey has varies a huge amount on several factors which include the health of the bee, the type of honey and the processing method of the honey (meaning Williams raw honey would be better than a cheap pasteurised honey). Honey has also been found to have antiseptic properties as it can help to disinfect an open wound. Keeping the area moist, honey stops further deterioration of the wound and prevents fibrosis, this really promotes fast healing, and as a result honey has been used to treat surface wounds, burns and even applied after plastic surgery to reduce scarring.
Exmoor Honeys History:
William started beekeeping in 2021 after he graduated from Cambridge University. Based in the heart of Exmoor he manages a few small hives where the honey bees feed on the flowers in the surrounding woodland, meadows and hedgerows. Far away from excess pollution of towns this is a very pure honey which is totally raw and unpasteurised, perfect for a honey and lemon recipe to cure a sore throat. We sell Williams entire range of honey, both runny and set, and also chunks of his honeycomb in the pantry section of our website.
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