Pine honey and the honey-producing insect Marchalina hellenica.
Most honeysuckle insects feed on vegetable sap by piercing the leaves, young shoots and fruits and sucking their contents. The honey-producing insects of the pine and fir penetrate the hard bark of the trees and are located on the trunk. This vegetable juice consists mainly of sugars and a limited amount of nitrates. In the 200 years of coexistence of the insect with the plant, no necrosis phenomena have been observed by Marchalina hellenica.
The insect Marchalina Hellenica reproduces by parthenogenesis, the females reproduce on their own. The first adult females appear in the spring. The adult female is looking for a spawning ground on the tree. Once it finds it, it secretes a waxy substance (cotton) more in the back of its body, where it will lay its eggs. The adult does not feed. Only the larval stages are the ones that feed. Honey secretions of beekeeping interest depend on the stage of the insect and the weather conditions.
Honeydew:
Honeydew is defined as the sugary juice produced by insects with oral molecules adapted to the sucking and inflow of fluid foods. The chemical composition of honeydew consists of 90-95% of sugars such as sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose, trehalose, etc. In addition to sugars, honeydew through the body of the insect is enriched with vitamins, nitrogenous substances, proteins and amino acids, in higher concentrations than those contained in nectar. The bee sucks this mixture of substances and transports it to its hive to process it.
Pine Honey:
Honey produced from honeydew in Greece represents 70% of the annual production. Of these, 60-65% is PINE HONEY and the remaining 6-10% is produced from the honey secretions of Elati insects.
Pine honey is a honey of high nutritional value and this is mainly due to the large number of different substances that are present in its composition. These substances are dominated by minerals and trace elements (calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron, copper, potassium and sodium.) Which are found in large concentrations in Greek pine honey.
Due to the low natural content of glucose in pine honey, its crystallization takes place at a fairly slow rate. The pure pine honeys remain liquid for more than a year and a half while their mixtures with heather, cotton, sunflower or polycomb honey crystallize in 2-5 months. The color of Spring pine honey is lighter and contrasting than that of Autumn which is darker.
