Great Treatise on Honey
Isabelle Avisse

Of all the products born from the insatiable labor of these astonishing social insects, bees—wax, propolis, pollen, bee bread, royal jelly, etc.—honey, by far the best known, has been appreciated since time immemorial on every continent.

Honey? How could the multiple species and subspecies of honeybees produce only one honey? From the very title, this book sets the tone, explaining in each chapter why each hive produces a unique honey, with specific characteristics and distinctive flavors, which can be confirmed by chemical analyses.

The Ancients, who recognized the half-plant, half-animal nature of honey, also knew that the interdependent bond between bees and flowering plants is the source not only of honey but also of other beekeeping substances.

This Grand Traité des miels explores the symbiotic relationship between the plant world and honeybees, the alchemical transmutation of pollen, nectar, and other sweet exudates in the hive's buzzing athanor. The aim is to highlight, on the one hand, the intrinsic properties of honey, its uses, past and present, in medicine, cooking, and cosmetics, and, on the other, its synergistic associations with other hive products.

Richly documented, supplemented by more than thirty appendices, and illustrated in the best tradition of treatises, this work offers a new approach to honey—so little known—and a remarkable synthesis of its proper uses in a wide variety of fields.

A beekeeper with a passion for domestic and wild bees, Isabelle Avisse, who holds a doctorate in literature and languages, combines in this book her love of these pollinators with her passion for research and writing. The Great Treatise on Honey won the 2014 Grand Prize for Culinary Literature awarded by the French National Academy of Cuisine!

Paperback - 19 x 27 cm
344 pages
Author: Isabelle Avisse
Publisher: Le Sureau