Miel de montagne - Pyrénées| Pierre W. Aoun, apiculteur en Ariège

“What is local honey? »

My apiaries are located within a 70 kilometer radius around Montagagne, where my honey farm is located.

The bees that I raise forage in the valleys of the Lèze and the Arize (Séronais), in the Ariège foothills near Pamiers, and higher in the Vicdessos valley and the Aston valley.

All the honeys I sell are pure. This means they have not been mixed. No assembly here. You are purchasing a product from the Ariège Pyrenees marked by the specificity of a territory and flora . Thus, as with a good wine, honey can reflect the terroir from which the foraged flowers come.

This is why the taste of this natural and raw product can vary from one year to the next, and this, on the same apiary. In short, my mountain honey is a living product . But rest assured, although the flavors may change slightly over the years, you will find the characteristics specific to each floral species. As for the quality of the honeys that I sell, it is always there.

Miel de montagne - Ariège | Pierre W. Aoun, apiculteur

“What guarantees the quality of this mountain honey? »

To be certain of the quality of my products, the honey that I sell is exclusively harvested from my hives .

Honey producer , that is to say harvesting beekeeper , I master all stages of production up to the marketing of my honeys.

From the choice of apiary locations, to the honey harvesting and extraction processes, including the sanitary management and feeding of bee colonies, I do everything possible to guarantee the absence of contamination by exogenous substances from my mountain honey .

The bees are foraging and the beekeeper that I am is harvesting. Honey is a pure product of the bee . And I have that in mind and respect it as much as possible in all stages of production.

The conditions for producing high quality honey are:

  • the location of the hives in a preserved environment;
  • a high quality wax for frames;
  • a harvest at maturity;
  • a honey house with good temperature and humidity during extraction;
  • cold extraction to preserve all the aromas of the product;
  • non-pasteurization of honey;

And to preserve all the taste qualities of this mountain honey , I advise you to store it in a cool place and away from light.

Online honey sales

“More information on product quality”

Let's not be afraid to go into detail.

The quality of the wax is very important, because it has this unfortunate tendency to capture and store all surrounding pollutants. This is why, for the sake of traceability, I only use my own wax. The natural and preserved environment in which my apiaries are located guarantees good wax. In addition, I exclude the refinishing wax of old frames from the beekeeping circuit. This one I use in particular for making candles!

To guarantee quality honey , I systematically exclude honey from melting lids.

I also take particular care in the operation of defrosting the crystallized honeys in order to be able to package them in jars. I limit the temperature to 40°C and reduce the exposure time of the honey as much as possible. Thus, the taste characteristics and enzymes contained in this mountain honey are preserved.

And to guarantee a maximum honey humidity level of 18.5%, the honey house is maintained at a maximum humidity of 50% during operations.

Finally, I regularly send samples to accredited laboratories in order to check the conformity of the name (pollen analyses) and the physico-chemical parameters or the absence of chemical contamination (multi-residue analyses).

In complete transparency, here are the latest analyzes of the honeys I sell: