Michelle Darmody: Bee positive — honey is a great all-rounder in recipes

Honey is a useful ingredient in both savoury cooking and baking. Whether it is browning up baked goods or sweetening up a tin of tomatoes. 

Organic homemade granola bars. File pictures.

This is the time of the year when most beekeepers are beginning to harvest honey from the hives that they have tended throughout the year. I had the great pleasure of harvesting honey a few years back. It is a lovely process and my house smelt sweetly of beeswax for days afterward.

To harvest the honey we borrowed a large metal centrifuge from the local beekeepers' association and then the slow process of taking the full frames from the hive began. We capped wax from the frames as delicately as possible, so the seal was broken on each of the hexagonal sections. The frames were then added to the strange-looking machine. Once it was filled and all of the frames were snuggly fitted we spun the machine furiously so that the golden liquid dripped out and into our waiting jars.