St. Patrick's Day is this week, and we are making up some of our favorite honey-inspired, Irish-themed recipes for the big celebration. But as we prepare, we thought it would be fun to take a deeper look at the history and importance of honey and honey bees in Ireland, and we found some really fun honey nuggets!
According to the National Biodiversity Data Center in Waterford, Ireland, the nation currently reports having only one species of native honey bee (Apis mellifera) and approximately 24,000 hives. Due to disease between wars, honey bees from France, Italy, Russia and the Netherlands had to be imported to help rebuild the honey bee population, and therefore many of the honey bees in Ireland are a combination of them all.
Scientists in Los Alamos have been working on training honey bees to detect explosives.
Did you know that beehives used to be given as gifts to show gratitude or loyalty to ancient Irish kings and queens? We all know how sweet of a gift that would be!
It is said that the best ancient Gaelic harps were tuned to the drone of bees.
It is also reported that honey was a staple in the ancient Irish diet. It is rumored that each person at the royal table had their own bowl of honey and dipped every bite of food in it! Honey was also used to marinate meats, especially salmon, which is a practice still to this day around the world, and was even consumed in hot milk.
While we may not dip every bite of our food in our favorite all-natural sweetener, honey is still recognized for its many culinary uses. From sweet to savory and everything in between, we've got five honey recipes that will sweeten up your St. Patrick's Day!
How do you sweeten up your St. Patrick's Day? Let us know in the comments below!
