Honey from the Pyrénées-Orientales

Few départements offer bees such a tiered succession of blossoms. Tamarisk and sea lavender on the coast, rosemary and thyme in the Corbières, white heather in the Albères, the chestnut groves of the Vallespir, then the rhododendrons of the Canigó: each level yields a distinct honey. Some beekeepers harvest from sea level up to around 1,600 metres, which explains the long lists of monofloral honeys on the market stalls.

This diversity rests on transhumance. As the flowers come into bloom one after another, the hives are moved from the plain to the valleys and the heights. Rosemary opens the season as early as March, and the alpenrose closes it at altitude, between 1,400 and 2,500 metres, from June to August. The training apiary of the Catalan beekeepers practises this itself: its hives go up to Saint-Laurent-de-Cerdans, from where its trainees bring back maquis and chestnut honeys.

The tradition is old and well organised. A Société d’apiculture des Pyrénées-Orientales was founded in 1922; in 1958, its merger with the Rucher catalan gave rise to the Union syndicale apicole du Roussillon (USAR), which opened a training apiary in 1972, then built the Maison de l’apiculture in Ille-sur-Têt in 1989 together with its members. In 2019, the USAR had 200 members, 40 of them professionals, with 8,500 hives. In Ortaffa, a cooperative honey house brings together thirteen beekeepers: it has each honey analysed and does not blend its members’ harvests.

No PDO or PGI protects the honeys of the département: the label remains the best guide. Since June 2026, a honey originating from several countries must state each country of harvest and its share as a percentage. The sector remains fragile: drought has weighed on harvests in recent years, as has the Asian hornet; in autumn 2026, beekeepers in the Vallespir said they were destroying more than 200 nests a year.