Have You Tried Fireweed Honey From Alaska?

Have you ever wanted to try Fireweed Honey from Alaska? Fireweed is one of the most popular wildflowers you will find in Alaska.

If you have been to our state, you would have seen fields of fireweed as this wildflower grows throughout the state. Did you know that this wildflower is one of the first plants that will emerge from the ashes of a forest fire?

Fireweed was one of the first plants to emerge after the Mt St Helens eruption in Washington State.

Fireweed will take over vast amounts of the landscape and it creates beautiful fields of bright colors. It truly is a beautiful sight to see and an easy one to find when you come to Alaska.

Looking out at the fields of fireweed, it will make you wonder if fireweed honey is being made right before your eyes. If you find a field of fireweed, chances are there will be honey bees.

The honey bee is attracted to fireweed because of how sweat the nectar is. In the beginning of the season the honey bee will start harvesting from clover, but when fireweed starts to bloom they are immediately attracted to the scent of the fireweed.

I spoke with Joe Dunham who has years of experience as a bee keeper and he said “It’s amazing watching the honey bee. One day they will be all over the clover and the next day they are nowhere to be found because they are attracted to the fireweed.“

You may live in an area where fireweed grows because it can be found throughout all of Canada and most of the United States, except the southeast and Texas.

Travelers to Alaska who come in the spring, summer or fall would have seen fireweed growing. As the summer grows towards winter, this wildflower starts to turn from a purple/pink color to a red color.

Fireweed is also a sign of the coming winter. As soon as the last flowers pop at the top of the stalk, winter is just around the corner. Once the last flowers have bloomed the fireweed starts to turn a brilliant red color.

Use Honey As A Natural Sweetener

There are many benefits of using honey as a sweetener and skipping out on processed sugar.

For one, honey is a natural sweetener and if you buy raw honey, it has not been processed. That means what you are eating is simply from the beehive and has no added ingredients.

The honey goes through a filter to take out any particles that may have been left in the honey, but beside that, this is as natural as you can get to a healthy alternative sweetener.

It’s still not recommended to eat honey if you have certain health conditions such as diabetes¹.

Are There Other Health Benefits Of Fireweed?

The fireweed plant is both a tonic and a nutritive – providing not only antioxidant, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory² relief but it also carries many important nutrients and vitamins.

It can be both ingested and used as a topical treatment to treat many skin inflammations³, migraines and fevers, and for being so “medicinal” it has surprisingly good flavor.

True Alaskan Fireweed Honey

To get the best fireweed honey, you simply need to harvest the honey from bees that get their nectar from the fireweed plant. These beehives are located near and within acres of fields of fireweed here in Alaska.

The sweet nectar of fireweed actually attracts the honeybee, so by setting up hives near these fields – we can gather this natural and raw Alaskan fireweed honey. We can then offer fireweed honey for sale and many of our customers come back for more on a regular basis!

The honeybee will go out and bring the nectar back from these wildflowers. Once the honeybee has brought the fireweed nectar back to the hive, the process of fireweed honey begins.

We can then harvest the honey from these hives, which is then processed and package to sell as Alaskan Fireweed Honey.

The Alaska Frontier sells this fireweed honey in 8oz and 1lb bottles.

By buying our fireweed honey you are supporting the honeybees who are busy making honey through our very short summers. We harvest as much fireweed honey as we can because the supply of this honey can be limited.

Fireweed honey is made by honey bees for the month of July and by early August this honey is being harvested, filtered and then bottled.

Nothing is done to ‘process’ our honey. The filtering process is simply straining the honey to make sure only honey is left behind.

What Makes Our Alaskan Fireweed Honey Taste So Great?

The fireweed honey that we harvest in Alaska is sweet. It has a very high sugar and low moisture content. This makes the honey not only sweet but very flavorful. It’s a great sweetener to add to your fireweed jelly, instead of using sugar. Other recipes can also benefit from this honey.

We believe our fireweed honey taste better than others because of how it is made and then harvested.

Did you know that a honey bee will travel 1-2 miles from their hive? If these hives are located near busy roads or polluted areas – guess what kind of honey they are making!

Having our hives away from heavy traffic areas and away from pollution allows our honey bees to bring back clean nectar which is then made into honey.

Where you get your honey is more important than how you get your honey. Many people don’t realize that their honey could be coming from polluted areas.

What Color Is Our Alaskan Fireweed Honey?

Our honey is a light to medium yellow color. The color of your honey can tell you what kind of taste to expect.

A lighter colored honey will have a milder taste and may taste sweater. While a darker color will have a stronger and rich flavor.

For a natural sweetener try our fireweed honey!

---

Pin It For Later

Sources

1.) https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/expert-answers/diabetes/faq-20058487

2.) https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-429/fireweed

3.) https://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/crops/crop-management/fireweed.html

Sharing is caring!