# Tree of Heaven (ailanthus altissima)



## tina keller (Nov 3, 2005)

Has anyone had experience with honey from a Tree of Heaven? This tree is in our neighbor's yard and was covered with yellow flowers last month. The male tree is quite smelly. Our whole backyard, all the beehives, have this pungent smell. The bees apparently love this. We extracted some honey last Saturday and it has quite a strong aftertaste. According to Dadant's American Honey Plants, in California, it produces an abundance of ill tasting honey. It goes on to say that the after a few weeks, they strong flavored honey becomes a very fine honey. Another website source says that the honey becomes a flavorful good quality honey with aging. 

This tree is quite invasive. I see them along the freeway everywhere. Has anyone had this type of honey? Did it really improve with age and if so, how long did it take? I have 6 gallons and would like to believe that it will be good to eat sometime. 

Thanks!


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## busybguy (Apr 28, 2005)

Is the tree you are talking about a basswood ?


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## izduz (Apr 28, 2005)

I have been fighting the tree of heaven for years in my yard. They were brought originally by the Chinese rail workers and you are right. They are very invasive. They will lift a "light" foundation, spread everywhere, and are near impossible to kill. They are foul smelling, and the more you work to cut them out, the worse the smell becomes, and the more they spread. I don't know about the quality of honey that is produced from their nectar, but it ain't worth the work to get rid of them.


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## tina keller (Nov 3, 2005)

I haven't heard of it called a basswood. There are other names though, Chinese Sumac, Stinking Ash, Varnish Tree (according to Dadant Honey Plants) I'm having trouble finding anyone who's personally had the experience with the honey. I'll keep you all posted as to whether or not the honey improves. Thanks


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## tina keller (Nov 3, 2005)

Update on that Tree of Heaven honey. The bad taste is going away! I'll have to wait a bit longer to make sure it's all gone and that the honey has a nice flavor. I'll post again in a few weeks. It crystallizes really fast, but makes fine crystals and is very smooth. I'll have to make creamed honey with this. 

Now, the bad news is that the bees are STILL bringing this stuff in. We took off 3 more honey supers on Thanksgiving Day and half of them had crystallized on the hive, both capped and uncapped! We tried to warm it up by our heater in the house. Bad idea! Some honey dripped into the heater and we had to clean it up pronto. Some foundations I think I will just pop out and throw away. Anyone have any luck liquifying honey in the frames and extracting it. If it was great honey, I'd take the trouble, but I'm still not 100% sure of this one. Thanks,

What to do next year? Move the hives for 2 months?

Tina


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I extracted quite a bit of partially crystalized honey this fall. If it's warm and you spin it fast enough, most of it comes out. Of course if it's really solid it may not.


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## King bee apiary (Feb 8, 2005)

Is the taste inproving or are you just getting used to it now?lol I'd put it up on the shelf this winter and forget about it until spring,then tast it.If it's better then cream it..Otherwise feed it back in the fall and spring..Maybe


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## tina keller (Nov 3, 2005)

That's a good question. I'm making other people taste it now just to be sure. Funny that some people can't taste the wierd taste in the beginning either. I brought the bucket to work today to get a few people to taste the aged honey. 

I'm also going to try putting 2 frames of crystallized honey in a dry sauna (a work friend has one) to see what happens. I'll let you know.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I'm also going to try putting 2 frames of crystallized honey in a dry sauna (a work friend has one) to see what happens. I'll let you know.

At what temps? 235 F is a standard Finnish Sauna temperature. I can tell you what will happen at that temperature.







Beeswax melts at 142 F and gets very soft before that. It's structural integrity rapidly drops off once you're past 100 F or so.


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## tina keller (Nov 3, 2005)

Well, it is a Finnish Sauna owned by a Finnish guy. They say they go up to 180 F in there. I was thinking about having them pull the frames out of there when it got to 120 F. Also, I would keep the honey on the floor, not on the top benches. I have plasticell foundation. So, it everything melts off at 120 F, I won't cry because I was going to pop out the foundation and toss it in the trash anyway. I was also thinking of asking them to put in a crystallized 2 gallon bucket to see what happens. I think I'll need them to pull everything out before they get in there because they put water on the hot rocks and it get steamy. Don't want to honey to soak up any water.


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## tina keller (Nov 3, 2005)

Update on Tree of Heaven honey. It's really starting to taste pretty good! That foul aftertaste is gone from the end of Oct. stuff. When my husband brought some to work to taste, his Chinese co-workers said it tastes like the honey from China. That makes sense since that tree came from China and is everywhere there. 

After smelling the strong stuff, one beekeeper friend said she had experienced that honey and thought it was so awful, she threw it away. I'll bet that happens a lot. People would not know that it actually improves! A lot. Wow! I'm glad I didn't toss it out like I wanted to at first.


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## KMP (Feb 21, 2013)

This is an old thread, but I wanted to add some additional information. The tree discussed here is _Ailanthus altissima_, aka "the tree" in Betty Smith's 1943 novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

The tree was introduced into North America in the early 1800s; it is also well established in Germany, where I live. Yes, it's dioecious (male and female trees); yes, it is a great favorite of the bees; and yes, it produces a wonderful honey. In the honey my Berlin city bees produce it is usually one of the main nectar components, along with linden (basswood), maple, horse chestnut, and woodbine (_Parthenocissus_). 

You have to give the tree credit for being a tough urban specialist. To quote Peter del Tredici's (Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast) entry on the Tree-of-heaven*: "Extremely tolerant of stressful urban conditions including heat buildup, drought, air pollution, and road salt." Also important for "slope stabilization and soil building on degraded land". 

Best wishes,

Kevin Pfeiffer

P.S. - In Germany it's called the "Götterbaum" -- the tree of the gods.


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## Copperblue (Feb 3, 2021)

tina keller said:


> Has anyone had experience with honey from a Tree of Heaven? This tree is in our neighbor's yard and was covered with yellow flowers last month. The male tree is quite smelly. Our whole backyard, all the beehives, have this pungent smell. The bees apparently love this. We extracted some honey last Saturday and it has quite a strong aftertaste. According to Dadant's American Honey Plants, in California, it produces an abundance of ill tasting honey. It goes on to say that the after a few weeks, they strong flavored honey becomes a very fine honey. Another website source says that the honey becomes a flavorful good quality honey with aging.
> 
> This tree is quite invasive. I see them along the freeway everywhere. Has anyone had this type of honey? Did it really improve with age and if so, how long did it take? I have 6 gallons and would like to believe that it will be good to eat sometime.
> 
> Thanks!


Our local honey producer Bermondsey Street Bees produce honey often with Tree of Heaven and it works well, gives a Christmas-cakey kind of flavour


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## Tigger19687 (Dec 27, 2014)

Copperblue said:


> Our local honey producer Bermondsey Street Bees produce honey often with Tree of Heaven and it works well, gives a Christmas-cakey kind of flavour


What is Christmas Cakey like ?


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Tiggs. Christmas Cake is a British version of our fruit cake.









A Time-Tested Recipe to Make the Perfect Christmas Cake


This time-tested traditional Christmas cake recipe is a combination of spicy, sweet, and boozy. Make it ahead for the holiday season.




www.thespruceeats.com





Since I like fruit cake (if you have one that was gifted to you and you don't want it, send it my way), tree of heaven honey sounds pretty good.


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## username00101 (Apr 17, 2019)

This is a very old thread, but tree of heaven is still around, all these years later.


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