Alfalfa honey

Michigan State University lists alfalfa, also called lucerne, as Medicago sativa in the family Fabaceae.

In his 1920 survey of American honey plants, Pellett called alfalfa the most important honey plant west of the Missouri river and of little value to beekeepers east of it.

Pellett described alfalfa honey from Colorado and Idaho as very light in colour with a spicy, mild flavour, and honey from the Imperial Valley of California as much darker.

Medicago pollen is under-represented in honey: harmonised melissopalynology gives a relative frequency of only 1 to 10 percent in unifloral alfalfa honeys.

Alfalfa honey was reported to granulate readily while being generally regarded as a high quality honey.

Pellett reported that alfalfa seldom yields nectar to any extent in humid climates, and that with enough moisture at the roots the hotter and drier the air, the better the yield.

Where alfalfa is cut for hay it loses much of its value to bees, while fields grown for seed give a much longer blooming period.

EU Directive 2001/110/EC (Annex II, unchanged by the 2014 and 2024 amendments) sets a general sucrose limit of 5 g/100 g but allows up to 10 g/100 g for alfalfa (Medicago sativa) honey, alongside false acacia, Menzies banksia, French honeysuckle, red gum, leatherwood and citrus honeys.

The Codex honey standard likewise lists alfalfa among the honeys whose sucrose content may reach 10 g/100 g instead of the general 5 g/100 g.

A 1946 study found that nectar-collecting honey bees usually trip few alfalfa blossoms, and that tripping in the fields was proportional to the number of pollen-collecting visitors.

The same study reported that the alfalfa flower is adapted to insect pollination and that practically no tripping occurred on plants from which bees were excluded.