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Van Thuy is a mountainous commune of Chi Lang district, Lang Son province. This is a commune with a large area of hills and forests with many types of natural trees and planted forest trees that have the potential to be exploited as honey sources to develop honeybee farming. Among those types of forest trees, the umbrella plants grows naturally, scattered over an area of about 1,100 hectares. The flowers of the umbrella plant bloom in winter, which is the season that people in Van Thuy commune exploit to produce the main honey crop of the year.

The entire Van Thuy commune has over 100 beekeeping households with about 800 colonies, with an output of 1,000 to 2,000 liters/year. Honey from the umbrella plant becomes special because flowers of this plant in the dry season, starting from October to December. While bees hibernate at this time in other areas, this is the peak time for bees in Van Thuy to produce honey, the collected honey is called umbrella plant honey (1).

Van Thuy honey from the umbrella plant has a moderately sweet taste, slightly bitter after taste; Vitamin B5 content: 0.11 - 0.21 mg/100g; Saponin triterpenenoid content: 4.73 - 4.79 mg/100g. Honey harvested from the nectar source of the umbrella plant in the geographical area is the main factor creating the above specific quality for Van Thuy honey from the umbrella plant flowers.

The geographical area has climatic conditions such as annual average temperature above 200C, cool climate, average annual rainfall of about 1,400 mm, less affected by storms and high humidity; has mostly feralite soils that are formed on sandstones and siltstones of reddish yellow color, distributed mainly from medium and high hill terrain, belonging to the Bac Son arc limestone sub-region, therefore, the geographical area is very suitable for the ecological conditions required for the bird's foot plant to grow and develop. The umbrella plants are distributed throughout the geographical area with densities ranging from 20 - 30 trees/ha.

The quality of Ngu Gia Bi flower honey is also achieved thanks to the unique techniques in the beekeeping process for honey produced by people in the geographical area. People in Van Thuy only use domestic bees (Apris cerana) for farming. The time to raise and exploit honey from Ngu Gia Gia flowers is from November to the end of February of the following year, this is the period with the lowest temperature of the year, so most other cultivated plants and natural plants in Van Thuy do not have flowering properties. On the contrary, white flowers bloom throughout the forests in Van Thuy. During harvest time, people absolutely do not feed the bees any additional food to ensure the natural properties of the honey. To ensure low water content and avoid dead larvae from fermenting and making the honey sour, when the honey cakes are about 90% covered, people will harvest the honey using a barrel to rotate and filter the honey.

Geographical area: Van Thuy commune, Chi Lang district, Lang Son province.

Center for Examining Geographical Indication and International Trademark

(1) According to Lang Son Electronic Newspaper (baolangson.vn)