Dolçamar continues to climb steps in the world of honey and its clover honey is the best in Spain

Miriam Triay/Ciutadella – With more than a decade of beekeeping behind it, Dolçamar, Antoni Anglada’s honey company, has won a new national award. This time, and after the four consecutive years in which he won the award for best flower honey, he has done it in a more concrete way. With a more specific product. With clover honey. Winning the Award for the best clover honey in the Honey Contest of the National Beekeeping Congress of Spain. From Foodies on Menorca we have been able to have a conversation with him.

What did it mean to win that award?

One more step towards the path we want to follow from Dolçamar. Which is, above all, creating honey, improving and making a hole beyond the Menorcan borders. This award was given to me for making clover honey. Lotus corniculatus is the scientific name. It is a flower that grows especially in rocky areas in the north of Menorca. And although it is a yellow flower that goes unnoticed, not at all offensive, to which not much importance is given, at the beekeeping level it has a lot. In fact, clover honey is very well known on the island.

This is added to other awards achieved in recent years.

Yes. The honey from Menorca is spectacular. And I, in a way, was one of the first who dared to submit it to contests.

Since 2018 I have been awarded with it. Before this year he had had two prizes in competitions within the island area. It was in 2018 that I entered a national contest, and won the Award for the best flower honey in Spain. In 2019, 2020 and 2021 I also won this award. And in 2022 I came second, below a colleague from Sant Climent. As I say, Menorcan honey is extraordinary, unbeatable.

The flora of the island is very diverse and is concentrated in a very small territory. This is what, among others, makes it different.

Tell us a little about Dolçamar?

Well, it is a project that was born in 2012, after I lost my job, and needed a change of scenery. I am a social worker by training. But there came a point where I had the need to do some kind of manual work. Something that made me vibrate. And I remembered that I had always had an intrigue and a special relationship with the world of bees and beekeeping. Without ever having come from a peasant family, I began to get started, thanks to the beekeeper Xec Gornés.

As I got deeper into it, I began to consider it as a long-term life project. I trained and took courses, in fact I still do. And I ended up creating the brand, the company, Dolçamar.

It is a completely artisanal world that is not easy because it depends on many factors that are beyond our reach. Like weather and precipitation. Water makes the flowers bloom, keeping them that way, with enough moisture for the root to generate nectar. If the plant does not have enough humidity, it aborts, and flowering takes a lot of effort. In Menorca it doesn’t rain a lot.

How has this year’s harvest been in this regard?

We come from two catastrophic years. In 2021 and 2022 they were two very bad years. There was a great drought, and we had many months without water which hurt us. In fact, I have only been in this world for twelve years, but people who have been in this world for much longer said that they had never seen a year like 2021. The worst of the two, without a doubt. 2022 was just a little better, but there was not much improvement either. This year… well, luck of the May rains that helped it rise. The average per honey house was somewhat higher than the other two years. It wasn’t like 2020, a really good year.

In this sense I have to add that, in the case of clover, this year there has been a lot, because even though it was a dry spring, as I say, in May it rained a lot. And it made the bramble and the lot make an important push.

What future projects do you have around Dolçamar?

The idea is to create a very powerful beekeeping company in Menorca. Grow and be able to reach 600 boxes. Goal for 2026. And then, perhaps and if everything goes well, increase it.

Have a good team, structure it well. It is considered that a beekeeper begins to have some control over the subject after 7-8 years of working. And in this sense you suddenly see when there is passion and when there is not. As everything. But in beekeeping it is essential that it be vocational.

And keep investigating. Send Menorcan honey abroad. Go look for market niches that give us added value. From my point of view, we Menorcans need to claim our product adequately, and outside. Go beyond supplying the local market. And that is what Dolçamar wants to do. Make ourselves worth it. We must give it the value it has.