Proprietary Honeys
____________________________________________
Central Texas Wildflower (In Store Only)
The Honey: Walker’s Central Texas Wildflower Honey is a medium bodied honey that varies slightly in flavor from season to season. Take some every day for good health. Some research suggests that regular consumption of honey produced in your locale may help alleviate allergy symptoms. For a classic every-day digestion and general well-being tonic mix equal parts Walker’s Local Honey, apple cider vinegar, and water. To this tonic, add your favorite fruit juice and water for a refreshing any-time beverage.
The Plants: Walker’s Central Texas Wildflower Honey is our only bee-mixed multi-floral honey. As such, it contains honey that our bees have made locally from several different plants. Indian Blanket (Gaillardia Pulchella)—a striking Texas wildflower—makes a golden light amber honey with a buttery taste. As the Gaillardia is in mid-bloom in early June, another native wildflower, Horsemint or Bee Balm (Monarda sps.) reaches full flower. Horsemint honey is very clear and provides an acidic tinge to the natural blend.
The Provenance (place): Walker’s Central Texas Wildflower Honey is produced in our own back yard. Our bees are dispersed from Austin to Waco along the eastern edge of the Texas Hill Country and throughout the Blacklands to the east of Interstate 35. So if you live in Bell, Falls, McClennan, Milam (West of the Little River), Williamson, or Travis Counties, this is your local honey. Enjoy!
Central Texas Yaupon Holly
The Honey: Yaupon Holly Honey is less sweet than most honeys. It has a slight bitterness which balances the natural sweetness of honey. A medium to full-bodied honey, Walker’s Yaupon Honey is a great complement to Pancakes, Waffles, or Toast; or stir it into Oatmeal with Oliver Pecan Co. pecan halves and apples or raisins.
The Plant: Our bees gather nectar from the Yaupon Holly (Ilex vomitoria) that grows in the understory of the Post Oak Savannah region of Central and East Texas. Yaupon trees bloom from late March to mid April. For many centuries, native Texans have made a dark, caffeine-rich drink from the dried leaves of Yaupon Holly, prompting the exploring Spanish to name the tree chocolate del Indio.
The Provenance: We locate our beehives on farms and ranches in Burleson, Lee and Milam Counties to produce this specialty honey. Our Yaupon Holly Honey is harvested immediately after the bloom period so that we can offer the purest Yaupon Honey. Because our bees will soon be gathering nectar from later-blooming plants in the same area, delaying the harvest even a few days would compromise the uniqueness of this honey. Our small batch, artisanal treatment of this unique honey gives us confidence that you will not find a better, more pure, presentation of Yaupon Holly Honey anywhere in Texas. Grandpa “Clint” Walker started our family business producing Yaupon Holly Honey. Please allow our Walker Family’s three generations and seventy-five plus years of Yaupon Holly Honey experience to be your warranty of quality. Enjoy!
Sorghum Honeydew
The Honey: Sorghum Honeydew is a rich brown and very heavy bodied honey. The flavor evokes the notes in sorghum syrup--a product made from boiling down the sap of another member of the sorghum grasses family, a close cousin of the maize plant. Use this rich and flavorful honey anywhere you would use a molasses and enjoy the added health benefits of the bees reducing all the complex sugars in the honeydew to simple sugars in the final honey product.
The Plants: All "honeydew honey”is produced by bees when they forage upon the sap of a plant that has been extracted by aphids. Sorghum Honeydew Honey is made by bees by collecting the extra sap of the sorghum or maize plant that is extracted but not totally consumed by the sugar cane aphid.
The Provenance (place): Central Texas
From Our Beekeeper Friends
____________________________________________
American Wildflower
The Honey: Wildflower honey is often referred to as "Poly-floral" honey, meaning honey that is from multiple species of plants within forage range of a beehive. This is in contrast to many of the other honeys on this list that are "Mono-floral" honeys. Mono-floral means that the honey is almost completely from the same species of plant allowing one to identify that plant's signature taste. Wildflower honey can be from a multitude of different sources and can vary wildly...ha!...from region to region and season to season. While there can be large variations, our American Wildflower is always selected from regions that we are highly familiar with. We work in close concert with our beekeeper friends to make sure we offer the best wildflower honey you can get!
The Plant: There are a plethora of melliferous plants across the US. Wildflower honey is exactly what it sounds like: honey from a multitude of wild flowers.
The Provenance (place): Our American Wildflower is a select honey with a multitude of other nectar producing wildflowers and tree blossoms. We scour the country for the best tasting wildflower honey each year. Our most common sources are South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, California, Texas and even Hawaii!!!
Clover
The Honey: Clover Honey is the most widely produced honey in the United States. This popularity is due to its abundance and overall appealing flavor. Unlike most honey that is labeled “Clover”, Walker’s Clover Honey is not a blend of clover and other honeys. If you have never experienced pure Clover Honey, we invite you to try a sample or a jar. Some people describe pure, unblended Clover Honey as “smooth” or even “buttery”. However it happens to strike your palate, we think you will see why Clover Honey is one of our most popular varieties. Use Clover Honey anytime, anywhere for a silky-smooth and sweet addition to foods and drinks.
The Plant: Clover Honey is primarily produced from what is commonly called “yellow sweet clover.” An exotic plant—native to Russia—clover has become an important forage plant for cattle as well as an excellent honey plant.
The Provenance (place): The best Clover Honey in the US is produced in the Midwest. Commercial Beekeepers in Texas will make Tallow honey here on the Gulf Coast of Texas and then move their bees up to the Dakotas and Montana to make large clover honey crops. While Walker Honey Farm no longer travels with our bees, we take advantage of our Texas Beekeeper friends to make some delicious Midwestern Clover for us!
Buckwheat
The Honey: Buckwheat Honey has a robust, full-bodied flavor and is dark amber in color. This honey is made by the gathered nectar from the small white flowers on the Buckwheat grain. Buckwheat Honey is higher in anti-oxidants than some other honeys and has been used for centuries to help soothe a sore throat or a cough. Buckwheat Honey is a great choice for baking bread and provides a wonderful contrast for your taste buds when drizzled on fresh fruit.
The Plants: Buckwheat Honey comes from the Buckwheat plant, which despite its name, is not actually related to wheat. When in bloom it appears as a small shrub with a white flower.
The Provenance (place): Pacific Northwest
Tallow
The Honey: Tallow Tree Honey has a slight bitterness which balances the natural sweetness of honey, Tallow Honey is a medium to full-bodied honey.
The Plant: On the coastal prairie along the Texas Gulf Coast grows a tree that was introduced into the Houston area in the 1950s as an ornamental landscaping tree. The Chinese Tallow Tree (Triadica sebifera) has a beautiful red heart shaped leaves in the fall along the coast making it one of the few trees to "true colors" in that area. Surely this was why it was imported...for it is fall showiness.
Now, it has become an invasive weed along the coast from the Louisiana border down past Lake Jackson and inland for a hundred miles or so in places. Cattle ranches fight it. Municipalities spend tax dollars trying to eradicate it. But honey bees and beekeepers love it. The golden tags literally drip nectar from them mid-May to mid-June every year
The Provenance: Texas Gulf Coast
Mesquite
The Honey: Mesquite Honey is slightly floral and pleasantly mild, and is very light in color as it actually happens to be our lightest honey in both flavor and color out of our varietals.
The Plants: Mesquite Honey comes from the Honey Mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) and the Screwbean Mesquite (Prosopis pubescens).
The Provenance (place): Our Mesquite Honey comes from the Deserts Southwest of the US and Northern Mexico. It needs specific drought conditions in order to produce the nectar for the bees to harvest, so while there are plenty of Mesquite trees around Texas, the weather conditions won't benefit the harvest unless in the most southern regions.
Orange Blossom
The Honey: Orange Honey is packed with flavanols (the stuff that you taste and smell) that explode on your taste buds. This varietal tastes and smells like an orange grove in full bloom. Orange Honey is good straight from the spoon and is the perfect complement to hot tea. It is an excellent topping for fresh fruit salad—just slice your favorite seasonal fruit, drizzle on Walker’s Orange Blossom Honey and enjoy!
The Plant: Our Orange Blossom Honey is produced from the nectar of the same blooms that yield the succulent oranges that you enjoy throughout the year. Wherever oranges are grown and produced, there are beekeepers taking advantage of this March blooming cultivated citrus plant. Orange Blossom Honey is produced across the Southern U.S. in the citrus groves of California, Texas, Mexico and Florida.
The Provenance (place): From 1942 to 1992 Walker Honey Farm produced Orange Honey in the Citrus Groves of the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Since then we have shopped for the best Orange Honey to deliver to our customers. Utilizing beekeepers we know in California, Florida, Mexico, and Brazil we are committed to using our 50 years of Walker family experience producing Orange Honey to bring you the best of this sub-tropical specialty honey. Inquire about our current supply as this varies year-to-year as we buy only the best offerings each season.
Tupelo
The Honey: Tupelo Honey has a bright and unique floral burst with a distinctive anise flavor that dissolves easily on the tongue, and has a very pleasing finish.
The Plants: Tupelo Honey comes from the green-white blossom of the white or Ogeechee Tupelo tree (Nyssa Ogeche). These blossoms are notoriously fragile, and the weather must be just right to produce an abundant honey crop. In good years, Tupelo trees will bloom for only a few weeks in late April and early May. In bad years, the nectar flow is over in a few days
The Provenance (place): Years of experience and good beekeeping skills are required to produce great Tupelo Honey. This raw unfiltered honey originates in the many rivers, lakes and wetlands in the middle section of the Florida panhandle. The Apalachicola, Ochlocknee, Choctahatchee, and Chipola river basins, which run from North to South in Gulf County, contain some of the highest concentrations of tupelo trees in the world.
Sourwood
The Honey: Sourwood Honey has a floral and light taste with hints of baking spices and anise. The honey’s color is typically light amber with a slightly gray or brown tint and its texture is defined by a smooth, caramel buttery quality.
The Plants: The Sourwood tree (Oxydendrum Arboreum) is also called the Lily of the Valley tree or the Appalachian Lily tree, growing 40 to 60 feet tall with a diameter of up to one foot. The leaves are oblong, pointed at the apex and have a sour taste. Flowers are white, bell-shaped, and hang in clusters 5-6 inches long at the end of the branches.
The Provenance (place): Sourwood Honey is most abundant in the mountains of North Georgia and Western North Carolina. The Sourwood tree blooms in late June through the month of July,beginning at lower elevations and moving up the mountain where the last blooms may not finish until early August. The Sourwood tree blooms during a period when few other nectar-available flowers are blooming, creating the opportunity for harvesting nearly pure Sourwood Honey during favorable years.
Basswood
The Honey: Basswood Honey has a distinctive taste with a mildly spicy and woody bite; its lingering flavor is almost minty. Very light in color.
The Plants: The Basswood tree is a close relative to about thirty species of trees native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. In Europe it is more commonly called a Linden tree. In North America it is more commonly called Basswood. This deciduous tree can reach 130 feet tall with large heart-shaped leaves 2-8 inches across creating dense foliage and a large shade canopy.
____________________________________________