“Honey is a taste of the landscape, a sensory journey into a moment in time,” according to Dr Gino Jabbar, a beekeeper, honey connoisseur and physicist. It’s sweet, golden and good for you, a genuine superfood, with anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antibacterial properties. On top of that, its makers, the bees, are crucial to much of life on earth, performing crucial pollination services for plants – including a large share of the world’s food crops.
Sign up to our daily newsletter , get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. And nobody is more passionate about honey and bees than Dr Jabbar. He keeps around two million of the insects – about 50 colonies – in a variety of locations around Edinburgh and the Lothians, producing an award-winning range of honeys under his brand Simply Honey.
He’s also a fully qualified honey-tasting expert and adviser – a “honey sommelier”, if you like, similar to a wine or whisky aficionado but able to detect the unique nuances in any particular honey. On top of all this, he also trains future beekeepers and runs a selection of workshops and special experiences. “On a practical level, the bee is a major pollinator, meaning it catalyses the development of fruit and seeds that .