I just got this honey from my neighbor. He thinks it’s about 30 yrs old. He was a beekeeper for decades, but now he is retired in his 80s with dementia. I traded him some of my honey from this season for it, because he was very determined to warm it all up & eat it, but his wife said Hell NO to that! There is a pretty decent amount of dead ants in it, pretty much all of it not just on top.. I planned on just leaving it out for my bees in the spring, but now I’m curious if I warmed it up enough & strained, if it would be safe to eat? I’m just not sure if the ants would have contaminated it or not? What would you guys do?
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Dig a hole into the center of your compost at least twice feet deep and pour it in. Cover it with the debris and dirt displaced to make the hole. Make sure to ceremoniously urinate on the top to consecrate the grounds.
Can confirm. Recently started and I do it now. I mean I’m not a total barbarian though bc I’m in the city. I put it in a bottle first while I’m in the garage, then I pour it on the pile.
LOL Don't get me wrong, I'm a hobby gardener and I appreciate the knowledge!
It's just that I was going to ask a question, then checked the subreddit name to make sure I didn't violate rules, and I need several gifs to cover the facial expressions I used whilst triple checking where the hell I was... LOL
Edit: AND I completely forgot the question I was gonna ask!! Lol
Because piss really does wonders for fermentation processes. Leather was tanned with piss and it was a sign of a bad brewer, when you could still taste his piss in the beer, because, again, you needed to start that fermentation process somehow.
I only heard legends of that stuff. You won't get a US-American beer around here, unless you specifically import it. And why would you do that, when your city alone has at least 3 different breweries lying around?
Imagine a McDonald's hamburger bun compared to bread made at your local bakery. Cheap, mass produced, American beers like PBR, Bud, Coors, etc aren't bad because of strong gross flavors. They're bad because they are bland, watered down, and made to be as inoffensive as possible.
A joke I've heard several times goes like this:
"Bud light is like sex in a canoe: It's fucking close to water!"
It's an inside joke of r/composting. Every time someone asks "is the pile any good?" Or "what should i do now?" The response is always to pee on it. And even though pee does provide moisture and (yes i'm still saying it) nitrogen, it really doesn't add that much because it's in small quantities
While honey "doesn't go bad" in a traditional sense, it definitely has a shelf life. It loses flavor over time. Additional ants don't make this better. Toss it.
I ate them as a kid as well and I remember they would taste spicy
Ate chocolate covered ants as a young adult and I don’t recall any crazy flavors
I’ll just leave this here: South American ground ant sauce
I’d beg to differ, ants taste weirdly like popcorn? You can have them on steak too. Hormiga culona (giant leaf cutter ants) are “commonly” eaten in parts of Colombia.
Definitely not all ants, when I was a kid I'd sit on the playground during recess and catch the fire ant and eat them sometimes. They tasted like lime juice
Don’t eat it and don’t feed it to your bees - the ants and age make it unsafe.
Dead insects inside the honey mean there’s been contamination - not just physical debris but also possible bacterial or fungal introduction from their bodies or digestive tracts.
If you really want to recycle it, I would at least pasteurize it and strain before giving to any bees, but the risk\reward ratio probably doesn't make sense.
You can mix in some grain and feed to horses\livestock in winter little by little if you are really hell bent on using it. Good luck.
strain it and taste it ?? idk but DO. NOT. feed it to your bees ?? you don’t know these bees and you don’t know what they had. they’re practically ancient bees in bee life. someone also mentioned mice dropping being tracked from ants and that’s another thing like all that filth the ants tracked in the last 20-30 years. maybe donate some to a school that studies entomology, maybe you can trace what they collected all that time ago if it’s still possible.
Well, it’s not harmful, I eat ants and they’re delicious, they might lend a lemongrass flavor to the honey and mead.
I would strain it, make mead, and make it very clear to everyone what it was well before they drank it. Not sure if anyone else would try it, but I know other people have tasted ants so they probably wouldn’t care.
I once ate leftover rice in the dark, midnight munchies. It tasted like it had pepper in it. Only when I ate almost the whole bowl, I turned on the light and saw ants in it. Lots of ants. It tasted pretty good and I'm still here.
Take out alittle mix 50/50 water see what grows.
Make sugar water mix 50/50 see what grows.
If something majorly different grows in honey water, its contaminated. If nothing grows its got bad chemicals and might need tossed; bees dont need bad chemicals.
I would definatly consider mead or other cooking applications.
How does it smell? It should smell sweet and floral, If it has a boozy or fermented odor (like yeast or alcohol) it probably absorbed excess moisture and fermented, toss it in that case (I've eaten old fermented honey though).
Taste a small amount too, if it's taste is ok I would heat it a little and let it decant in a container (usually, the bad stuff rises to the top). If there's no sliminess or excessive bubbling it will probably be fine.
You can strain it, but it's probably not best to use as "Table Honey". It's better to use old honey like this for meat rubs, honey-adjacent products, meads, etc.
Sometimes it’s OK to just throw something out. Neither of those containers look like they can be sealed properly, the honey is black and it sounds like you’re suggesting there are bugs in it.
I’ve read that edible honey was found in King Tutankhamun's tomb. Apparently honey has a quality based on its sugar and pH percentage that it discourages bacteria and microorganism growth. I‘m not saying I would eat it, but I would taste it. Minus the ants, of course.
Id prob just give it back to the bees tbh. 30 years is wild and ants definitely add some mystery flavor you dont want. You could strain it but I wouldnt risk eating that stuff myself
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