How to determine the natural origin of honey at home

There are several methods to check whether natural honey is at home or not. Each of them reveals the low quality of the bee product – the presence of various additives, feeding the bees with syrup, admixture of honeydew, and other attempts to mislead buyers.

The content of the article

  • 1 What can be done right on the market: weighing
    • 1.1 Transparency, test by hand, test on paper
  • 2 Home tests
    • 2.1 Looking for sugar syrup and inverted sugar
    • 2.2 Looking for flour, starch and chalk
    • 2.3 Determine the pad
  • 3 What should alert the market
  • 4 About crystallization
  • 5 Simple rules for consumers

What can be done right on the market: weighing

One of the most important factors affecting storage time is moisture content. With the recommended content of less than 21 percent, a liter of honey will weigh from 1,42 to 1,44 kilograms.

An excess of moisture leads to a drop in specific gravity. For example, with a moisture content of 27%, it will be only 1,37 kilograms.

Transparency, test by hand, test on paper

The absence of impurities is also indicated by transparency… Natural bee product will not appear cloudy in the light.

Hand test is also an effective and fast way of checking. It is enough to rub a drop of honey between your fingers. If this can be done, the product is natural. The counterfeit is not rubbed, but rolls into sticky lumps!

Sugar syrup is detected using well water absorbent paper… A drop of honey is placed on a paper sheet and waited for its spreading. Wet spots around the edges are a sign of adding various additives to the bee product, including sugar and water.

It is important to know the product “by sight”. An experienced buyer is aware of the taste, aroma, color, consistency of a particular honey variety. And also about the time of pumping it out of the honeycomb.

You can read about it in our articles:

Monofloral (one-component) varieties

Polyflora (multicomponent) varieties

Home tests

Even without going to a laboratory, you can identify a fake yourself at home. However, such testing will take time, since various chemical reagents are used.

Looking for sugar syrup and inverted sugar

You can determine natural honey using ether. This will help identify the inverted sugar additive.

Testing:

  • Take a teaspoon of honey (5-6 g) and a small amount of ether (by eye). It helps to extract the breakdown products of fructose.
  • The resulting solution is filtered into a glass or porcelain container and evaporated.
  • Then a 1% solution of resorcinol and concentrated hydrochloric acid (with a specific gravity of 1,125) is prepared.
  • Two to three drops of this mixture are introduced into the evaporated residue. Cherry or orange staining indicates impurity.

Discover Sugar Syrup Lapis (silver nitrate solution) helps.

Testing:

  • To do this, prepare a 5-10% aqueous solution of honey and drip lapis into it.
  • A white, silvery precipitate indicates the presence of sugar syrup.

Looking for flour, starch and chalk

home testing

To check whether honey is natural or not, in terms of coarse impurities in the form of starch syrup, it will be possible to use ammonia.

Testing:

  • part of the purchased bee product is taken in two parts of water;
  • two or three drops of ammonia are introduced into the solution (as much as possible, by eye);
  • the appearance of a white color in the solution and the precipitation of a brown precipitate is a sign of the presence of starch syrup.

Note: molasses generally alters the quality of honey. It is stringy, viscous when stirred. It does not crystallize for a very long time.

Chalk detection produced with acetic acid.

Testing:

  • the bee product is mixed with distilled water (proportion by eye);
  • a few drops of acetic acid are dripped into the liquid mixture;
  • “Boiling” with the release of carbon dioxide indicates the addition of chalk.

iodine

It is necessary to check whether honey is natural or not at home with iodine if there is suspicion of the presence of both flour and starch at the same time.

For this, the aqueous honey solution is boiled and cooled. Then 2 to 5 drops of pharmaceutical iodine are injected into it. Impurity is indicated by the blue discoloration of the solution.

And if you stir a small amount of bee product in distilled water, flour and starch will settle in the form of silt or float. Iodine is not needed in this case.

Determine the pad

Of course, honey from honeydew is also a natural bee product, but its quality is low, and the taste is specific, for an amateur. It costs less than flower varieties. For this reason, it is mixed into more expensive varieties of bee products.

In its pure form, the pad becomes cloudy during storage and precipitates with the formation of flakes. For bees, such food is a real poison that causes honeydew toxicosis. A person can use honey without harm to health. But the taste of such a product is not very pleasant.

There are two ways to identify a fake:

With 96% Wine Alcohol… For this, a part of honey is taken into two parts of distilled water. 1 ml of wine alcohol is poured into 10 ml of the solution. Turbidity and flocculation indicate an admixture of honeydew.

With lime water… Part of the distilled water is taken part of the honey, mixed thoroughly. After that, two parts of lime water are added to a part of the solution and brought to a boil. Turbidity and brown floc formation indicate the presence of honeydew.

What should alert the market

sale

An attentive buyer should be suspicious of the following signs:

  • Specific sour smell and taste with an alcohol tint (the bee product wanders / wanders due to improper storage or its immaturity).
  • Too liquid consistencywhen it is impossible to “wind” honey on a spoon (the product is immature, if we are talking about buying in season; or warmed up when packing, if bought in winter).
  • Dark color may indicate an admixture of honeydew, with the exception of dark varieties, for example, obtained from buckwheat. The pad is dark brown to black in color. It tastes bitter or slightly sour.
  • Low aroma and caramel flavor, as well as a dark shade, indicates molten honey or counterfeit.
  • Too light color (almost white) may be a sign of a fake sugar, artificially obtained or by processing the syrup by bees.

About crystallization

crystallization

Maturity is the most important sign of a quality product. It is often found during storage. Ripe bee products are stored for years without changing their taste and healing qualities. Unripe may well ferment, and it does not look appetizing.

Signs of maturity:

  • Cage (sugaring, crystallization) 1,5-2 months after pumping out of the honeycomb. The exception is liquid varieties like acacia.
  • When scooped into a spoon, the sugared honey is collected “with a slide”.
  • Ripe, but not yet sugared – easily wraps around the spoon as it rotates, with little to no dripping.
  • There is no syrup on the surface during storage!
  • At room temperature, a sugared mature bee product retains its crystalline structure for a long time – it lies on a saucer in a slide, without spreading. It looks quite dense.

Storage immaturity:

  • After setting, the product is liquid, pasty or decomposed into two fractions – syrup and a denser sediment.
  • It fits into a spoon easily, like water or liquid sour cream, filling it only flush with the edges.
  • Instantly spreads on a saucer without retaining its structure.
  • It sours during storage even before setting, or begins to ferment in a shrunken form next spring. At room temperature, fermentation processes are noticeably accelerated!

Simple rules for consumers

laboratory

In order not to have to check if honey is real, those wishing to purchase this product must adhere to simple rules:

  1. You should buy in specialized outlets where veterinary control is carried out, or on the market, but if the seller has documents confirming the quality.
  2. Don’t trust “network marketing” delivering home delivery! In this case, there is a high probability of acquiring a counterfeit.
  3. In autumn, from about the end of September, beginning of October, a high-quality bee product should be candied.… An exception is the variety obtained from white acacias.
  4. When tested organoleptically (visually), a quality product has a homogeneous structure, a definite flavor profile and aroma according to the variety.
  5. Manual filling (packing) has an advantage over the factory when buying!
  6. It is best to purchase a product produced in apiaries within a radius of 400-500 kilometers… And not from the reseller, but from the manufacturer. Sellers who come from far away may have expired or revised documents.
  7. The label (when buying on the market or in a store) must indicate the address of the supplier and its name, place and time of collection, the variety and botanical type of the bee product, as well as the standard by which the quality was assessed.
  8. It is also mandatory to familiarize yourself with a quality coupon issued as a result of a veterinary examination..

You need to understand that nectar can be collected by bees in ecologically dangerous places, for example, along busy highways. That does not exclude the ingress of lead and other substances poisonous to the human body. Therefore, when buying a large batch of honey, you must first purchase about 100-150 grams and transfer the sample to the laboratory for a veterinary sanitary examination. Only in this case, you can be 100% sure of the quality and safety of the product, even if it is bought from an unknown manufacturer or reseller-distributor.

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Anna Evans

Author ✓ Farmer

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