Make a bee-line for honey

Honey gets hot

That pot of honey in the larder just lasts and lasts, making it the ideal ingredient. Click through our gallery to discover 10 things you didn\'t know about honey and 10 honey recipes to help you utilise the delicious runny stuff. Oh, and do try to buy local honey, rather than produce of different countries - it\'s better for the environment (less air miles), better for your taste buds and it may even be better for you too... if you\'re a hayfever sufferer, rumour has it that eating local honey can help alleviate symptoms.

Pictured: Oxfordshire beekeeper Jim Chambers, who has been keeping bees for over 60 years!

Honey, I baked!

Honey is hygroscopic (meaning it attracts water) so it is good for baking cakes as it keeps them moist for a good while.

Try this recipe for Burnt honey & orange drizzle cake - a truly delightful tea time treat

Feel the buzz

The natural fruit sugars in honey - fructose and glucose - are very quickly digested by the body. This is why sportsmen and athletes use honey to give them a natural energy boost.


Go for this Orange and Honey Chicken Salad to give any would-be athletes a pre or post match boost - the low fat content is a bonus too.

Busy bees

Honey bees must gather nectar from two million flowers to make one pound of honey.

Pay tribute to their hard work and relax with a slice of this sweet and sticky Pinenut and Honey Tart.

Sweet and sticky

The average honey bee will actually make just one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime, but we eat about 30 tonnes of honey every year in the UK.

Burnt Honey and Thyme Ice Cream? Oh yes...

Bee sexy!

At traditional Indian weddings, the bridegroom is often offered honey to boost his stamina - oh and Cupid\'s emblem was a bee!

Seduce someone with strawberries macerated in sweet wine with honey sabayon. Scrumptious.

Queen bees

Worker bees are all female.

Bake a batch of these Honey and hazelnut biscuits for a coffee morning or a girl\'s night in

Perfect preserve

Honey lasts for ever - or nearly. An explorer who found a 2000 year old jar of honey in an Egyptian tomb said it tasted delicious!

Fancy trying Warm haloumi and honey salad? We thought you might

Healing honey

Honey has antiseptic properties and historically was often used as a dressing for wounds and a first aid treatment for burns and cuts.

Will you feel better after eating pancakes drizzled in honey-butter sauce? Very likely

Honey trap

When a bee finds a good source of nectar it flies back to the hive and shows its friends where the nectar source is by doing a sort of dance positioning the flower in relation to the sun and the hive. This is known as the \'waggle dance.\'

Just a slice of Honey-fried fruitcake with ice cream should be enough to win over your friends, without you having to do the waggle dance!

Milk and honey

Honey\'s ability to attract and retain moisture means that it has long been used as a beauty treatment. One of the most famous historical examples of people using honey as a beauty ritual is Cleopatra and her legendary milk and honey baths.

We think milk and honey are put to much better use in this Honeyed quince pandowdy than in the bath - one slice and you\'ll feel better than Cleopatra ever looked!