How to distinguish real white honey from a fake. How to identify natural honey or fake

Greetings to everyone in my electronic beekeeper diary!

Yesterday a friend called me and asked me to consult about honey. He was going to visit relatives in Kazakhstan and wanted to bring local honey to his grandmother.

Walking through the shelves, I bought a couple of jars for testing from different manufacturers, as a result, one honey turned out to be sour, the other began to hurt my stomach.

I explained to him for a long time how to choose a good product, and then I thought that it would be better to write down all these recommendations so that I could take a printout with me. Look for helpful tips below.

A few tricks when choosing honey

Liquid honey happens only within a month after the honey collection, which lasts from the end of July to the end of September. By the end of October, all collected honey begins to crystallize and thicken, except for honey from acacia and heather. Therefore, if you are offered liquid honey on the market in winter, most likely it has been melted or diluted with glucose syrup. Remember that when honey is heated to 40 degrees and above, it loses all its valuable properties and turns into ordinary sweet syrup.
To check the naturalness of liquid honey, dip a spoon into it and lift it up - high-quality honey will slowly flow down a long thread, and if it breaks, then a slide will form on the surface of the honey, which will slowly spread. Fake honey quickly pours from a spoon or scatters with splashes. You can wind honey on a spoon - if it lays down in even folds, it means that this is not a fake in front of you.
Be sure to smell the honey and taste it - it should have a fragrant smell and a characteristic taste that cannot be compared with anything else. The absence of aroma indicates the artificial origin of honey, and the caramel flavor indicates that the honey was exposed to high temperatures.
The color of honey is not an indicator of its quality, so white honey does not mean sugary, and dark brown color does not indicate the presence of molasses or sugar syrup in honey. Sweet clover, acacia and fireweed honey have light shades, buckwheat, cherry and honeydew honey are dark brown, and other varieties can be light yellow, amber and dark amber.

There are ways to more detailed check the quality of honey at home. Some housewives dissolve honey in water and drip lugol or iodine - a blue solution indicates that starch or flour has been added to the product. More inquisitive experts arrange a real chemical laboratory in the kitchen, but this can be avoided if you take honey from a familiar trusted beekeeper who keeps bees in an ecologically clean area.

Source: www.edimdoma.ru

How to choose natural honey in the market

And the problem of how to choose real honey on the market is faced by many, especially city dwellers, is acute. It's no joke - both shops and markets are filled with fakes of the most varying severity, and in some places the sellers are so convincing and professional in their fakes that it is almost impossible to get away from them without buying.

So, instead of a truly natural product, some business beekeepers sell one that is made by bees, but not from nectar or honeydew, but from simple sugar syrup, which the beekeepers themselves diligently feed their pets. Often sold honey is two or three years old, melted and poured many times. No one, of course, admits to its antiquity.

And the most severe fakes are vegetable syrups, with the help of additives disguised as a natural product. Such surrogates are most often prepared by evaporating melon or watermelon juices. Passing them off as natural honey is the most difficult thing, but sometimes scammers do it. In order not to be deceived and choose real high-quality honey, you should know the main features of a natural product.

How to distinguish good honey from fakes

Taste.
It should be somewhat astringent and cloying. How to choose natural honey to taste? It has a pronounced specificity. Linden is somewhat more tender, sunflower or buckwheat - especially bright and clear. Fake or honey collected from sugar syrup tastes like banal sugar syrup. As a rule, they do not cause a slight burning sensation on the tongue, characteristic of a natural product.
By smell.
Likewise with smell. How to choose high-quality honey on the market? Smell it! Any natural product has a specific aroma, even when thickened. And sugar syrups almost do not smell.
General consistency.
It is easiest to identify by rubbing a drop of sweet treat between your fingers. How to choose natural honey? It will be easily rubbed evenly and absorbed into the skin. Fake most often forms clots and lumps that are easily felt by the fingers.

Very often, when choosing honey on the market or from hands, it is possible to evaluate its consistency by dipping a stick or spoon into it. The “correct” honey, when poured from a spoon, will form a thin thread, and on the surface of the main mass it will accumulate in the form of a pagoda, which will gradually spread. A fake, as a rule, drips from a spoon and immediately falls into the main volume.
By color.
How to choose honey by color? This sign is the most difficult. So, some varieties of honey can be very easily confused with "sugar" because of their lightness. However, honey made from sugar usually gives the impression of being too white. In addition, natural honey is always quite homogeneous and transparent, while fakes usually have turbidity and a small sediment at the bottom.

But even knowing how to choose natural honey according to these characteristics, it is better not to rush and take the selected samples in the smallest quantities - a mayonnaise jar, for example. And already at home to conjure them. For example, there are good methods for assessing the presence of certain additives in the composition of honey.

What is added to honey

Starch.
It is calculated by the usual school experience: a few drops of iodine are dripped into a jar. In the presence of starch, the smudge on the surface of the honey will turn blue.
Sugar.
It is even easier to check: a piece of bread is dipped into honey and held for ten minutes. After that it is taken out. If the bread has hardened, then the honey is good. If it's soft, it means there's a lot of sugar syrup in it.
Water.
Water will definitely show itself if you drop honey on a piece of paper. A good product will remain a drop on paper, and diluted with water will begin to form liquid spots or even leak.
Chalk.
It is added to the composition of the product most often to give the impression of density and density. To detect it, it is necessary to drop vinegar essence into a spoon with honey. Hissing means bad.

In order to check whether the honey you have chosen is of high quality, you can simply poke it with a red-hot wire. If anything remains on it after taking it out, you have a fake in front of you. Good honey does not stick to hot metal. And only after these manipulations at home help you choose real high-quality honey, you can safely go to the market and buy a full supply for the winter from an honest seller.

By the way, it is important to remember that no natural honey can be stored for several years without thickening. Fortunately, after a few months it begins to crystallize. And if in the middle of winter they sell you a product that is clean, like a baby’s tear, and fluid like a mountain stream, know that something is wrong with it.

Source: sostavproduktov.ru

Distinctive properties and features of natural honey

Consistency is the first sign of real honey. First of all, it should be homogeneous, at the bottom of the jar of honey there should be no sediment, no delaminations. Also, depending on the time of year, ambient temperature, this indicator is different: young honey has a liquid consistency, and by winter it becomes thicker.

With the onset of cold weather, natural honey, as a rule, crystallizes (“candied”) - it becomes lighter, cloudy and thicker. If this does not happen, then the honey is falsified.

Attention!

An exception to the rule is acacia honey, this type of honey crystallizes more slowly than others.

That is why in winter real honey cannot be liquid, in this case it was either melted (usually beekeepers say “dissolved”) to give it a marketable appearance, or it was obtained as a result of feeding bees with sugar. By the way, in winter, packaged honey on store shelves is usually of a liquid consistency, which should be alarming.

Pay attention to the fluidity of honey (this method is suitable for freshly pumped liquid honey). The quality of young honey can be determined as follows: dip a spoon into a bottle of honey, scoop it up and lift it up. Real honey lasts for a long, long time, flows down in an even stream, does not break into drops, lies on a plate in a slide, and then spreads smoothly over its surface. The last drop of dripping honey springs and pulls back to the spoon.
If you turn the spoon around its axis, then the honey should “wrap” around it like a ribbon. Unripe honey will usually drip off immediately, no matter how fast you spin the spoon.

Try also rubbing some honey between your fingers. The real one is completely absorbed, while the fake one forms a lump that can be rolled.
Taste. Real honey, in addition to being just sweet, should also be pleasantly bitter, cause a slight sore throat, it should have a tart taste. Hold some honey in your mouth and swallow - the right honey will "twitch" your throat.
Smell and aroma. Real honey smells like flowers, the smell is unobtrusive, natural. Artificial has two extremes: the smell can be completely absent or it can be sharp, unnatural, give off caramel.
The color of honey depends on the honey plants from which the nectar was collected. For example, flower honey comes in light shades, buckwheat - brown, linden - amber. The white color may indicate that the bees were fed sugar syrup. In this case, they ferment sugar and process it like ordinary nectar from the fields. The result is ordinary honey, which is difficult to determine even in the laboratory.

Of course, in terms of its useful properties and taste, it is significantly inferior to natural.

Often unscrupulous sellers already in spring or early summer offer buyers liquid dark-colored honey (supposedly buckwheat). This color can be obtained by melting last year's frozen honey. Such honey is “dead”, because when heated above 40 degrees, it loses all its beneficial properties.

For the same reason, honey should not be added to hot drinks (tea, milk, cocoa). For cosmetic purposes (during the preparation of homemade masks, scrubs), it is advisable to slightly heat crystallized honey in a water bath at a water temperature of about 40 degrees.

The so-called May honey is very popular among the population. For experienced beekeepers, the word "May" causes an involuntary smile. No, theoretically honey can be harvested in May, but no beekeeper in their right mind would take sweet flower nectar and pollen from the future brood, which they need for growth and development. Pumping out honey in early spring leads to lethargy, weakness of future working bees and a shortage of many tens of kg of honey in the fall during the main collection of bee products.

How to experimentally establish the authenticity of honey at home?

The high demand for honey and other bee products creates fertile ground for scammers. Currently, flour, chalk, sawdust, starch, sucrose, molasses and other fillers are used to create counterfeit.

Some types of fakes are difficult to detect even in the laboratory. For example, feeding bees that bring nectar from the fields with sugar syrup. The color of such honey is usually lighter, almost white, and it also crystallizes more slowly.

Methods for determining the fake honey using chemical reactions:

Dissolve a little honey in a glass of water, then pour the liquid into a transparent container. If the product contains impurities (flour, chalk, starch, sawdust), they will either float to the surface or settle to the bottom.
To detect starch or flour, add a drop of iodine to the honey solution, and the solution should turn blue.
Drop vinegar into the solution. If something hissed - this is a sure sign of the presence of chalk in it.
But using this method, you can detect the presence of sugar or starch syrup in honey. Prepare a 10% honey solution. Add a little medical alcohol to 1/2 of the solution, if it turns white - starch syrup was mixed into the honey. To detect signs of sugar molasses, you need to add silver nitrate or lapis to the remaining half. If a white precipitate falls out, it means that it is present there.
The presence of impurities can also be determined using blotting paper (blotter paper). We apply a small amount of honey on paper, leave for 3-5 minutes. If during this time the paper does not get wet on the reverse side, then this indicates a high quality of honey.
You can find out if honey is diluted with sugar syrup by immersing a piece of bread in honey for 10 minutes. We look: if the piece is hard, then the honey is normal, and if it has spread or softened a lot, then syrup was probably mixed into it.

Watch a video on how to choose the right honey:

Source: www.maski-natural.ru

Methods for determining the quality of honey

The people have their own methods of how to determine the quality of honey, for example, using a chemical pencil.

The bottom line is this: a layer of honey is applied to paper, a finger or a spoon and a chemical pencil is drawn over it, or a pencil is dipped into the honey itself.

It is assumed that if the honey is falsified, i.e. contains all sorts of impurities (sugar, sugar honey, as well as an increased amount of water), then a colored pencil mark will remain. However, the researcher V. G. Chudakov in 1972 tested 36 samples of honey of different quality, including 13 falsified ones, and believes that this folk method for determining the naturalness of honey and assessing its quality is absolutely wrong.

There is another folk method to determine the falsification of honey, it consists in a test on blotting paper. A small amount of honey is placed on blotting paper. If after a few minutes a watery spot appears on the back of the paper, this is considered a sign of falsification.

Again, V. G. Chudakov conducted laboratory studies of this sample, which led to the conclusion that the sample actually allows you to determine almost 100% of counterfeit honey, but besides, some natural honeys also fall into the category of counterfeit.

Advice!

If you buy honey, then look in the reference books for how it should look. The main thing is that it must have a certain aroma, honey taste, that is, a bouquet corresponding to a certain variety of natural honey must also match the color.

If the honey is too white, this should raise the suspicion that it is sugar? If the color is dark brown, is it not honeydew? If its aroma is blunted, the taste of caramel is felt - it means that it is melted honey.

Also pay attention to the consistency of honey - it should correspond to the density of the variety, at a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius it should be wound on a spoon, like a ribbon, with sweet threads that break at a certain moment.

Liquid honey should arouse suspicion. Most likely, this is unripe honey. It will not be stored, it will ferment, as it contains a lot of water. Such honey will not “wrap” on a spoon, but will simply drain from it. If you buy honey in winter, it should not be runny, and if it is, it has most likely been warmed up or diluted.

When buying, check the honey for fermentation. When stirring, it should not be felt that it is not viscous, actively foaming, gas bubbles appear on the surface, that a specific sour smell comes from it, and there is also an alcohol or burnt taste.

Before buying a large amount of honey, buy 100-200 grams for a sample.

Beware of purchasing honey from apiaries located along highways with heavy traffic. In such honey, there may be an increased amount of lead compounds and other substances that fall on flowers with car exhaust. With nectar and pollen, lead gets into honey, and this is dangerous for the health of those who consume it.

Honey collected in areas with unfavorable ecology is very harmful.

How to identify impurities in honey?

To determine various impurities in honey, the following methods are recommended. Pour water into a transparent jar, add one teaspoon of honey, stir - the honey will dissolve, an impurity will settle at the bottom.

In order to detect an admixture of flour or starch in honey, you need to pour 3-5 ml of an aqueous solution of honey (1: 2) into a jar or glass and add 3-5 drops of Lugol's solution (or tincture of iodine). If honey contains flour or starch, the solution will turn blue.

An admixture of molasses (a mixture of cool water and starchy sugar) can be recognized by its appearance, stickiness, and lack of crystallization. You can also mix one part of honey with 2-3 parts of distilled water, add a quarter of the volume of 96% alcohol and shake.

If there is starch syrup in honey, then the solution will take on a milky color. After settling this solution, a transparent semi-liquid sticky mass (dextrin) will settle. If the impurity is absent, the solution will remain transparent.

You can detect impurities of sugar (beet) molasses and ordinary sugar by adding a solution of silver nitrate (lapis) to a 5-10% solution of honey in water. If a white precipitate of silver chloride falls out, then this indicates the presence of an impurity. If there is no sediment, then the honey is pure.

There is another way: to 5 ml of a 20% solution of honey in distilled water, add 22.5 ml of methyl (wood) alcohol, with the formation of an abundant yellowish-white precipitate, it will become clear that honey contains sugar syrup.

To detect an admixture of inverted sugar (grated honey), there is a rather complicated method: grind 5 g of honey with a small amount of ether (in which the products of fructose breakdown are dissolved), then filter the ether solution into a bowl, evaporate to dryness and add 2-3 drops of freshly prepared 1 % solution of resorcinol in concentrated hydrochloric acid (sp. weight 1.125 g).

If the impurity turns orange (to cherry red), then there is invert sugar.

An increased percentage of sucrose in honey, which can be established in the laboratory, indicates its poor quality: in natural flower honey, sucrose is not more than 5%, not more than 10% in honeydew. The better the quality of natural honey, the less sucrose it contains. "Sugar" honey has its own organoleptic characteristics: the smell of old combs, insipid inexpressive taste, liquid consistency (if it is fresh), with long-term storage it becomes thick, sticky, sticky.

"Sugar" honey (the bees were fed or fed with sugar), like all non-natural honey, is distinguished by the absence of vitamins, organic acids, protein and aromatic substances, and mineral salts. In sugar honey, silicon is the main element, and other salts are practically absent, there are only traces of them. In natural honey, the opposite is true.

If the honey does not crystallize, then it can be assumed that there is an admixture of potato molasses.

Advice!

In order to detect an admixture of honeydew honey, pour 1 part of an aqueous solution of honey (1: 1) into a glass and add 2 parts of lime water, then heat the mixture to a boil. If brown flakes are formed that precipitate, then this indicates the presence of an admixture of honeydew honey.

How can you spot a fake?

In a cup of weak warm tea, add a little of what you bought under the guise of honey. If you are not deceived, the tea will darken, but no sediment will form at the bottom. Over time, honey becomes cloudy and thickens (candied) - this is a sure sign of good quality. And not, as many mistakenly believe, that honey has deteriorated.

Sometimes honey during storage is divided into two layers: it thickens only from below, and remains liquid from above. This suggests that it is immature and therefore should be eaten as quickly as possible - unripe honey only lasts for a few months.

Attention!

Careless beekeepers do not take out bees to collect nectar, but simply feed them sugar. Sugar honey is not natural. There is nothing useful in it. Such "sugar" honey is unnaturally white.

In real honey, there is no free water - in mature honey, water (about 20% of it) is completely bound in a true saturated solution. Honey with sugar syrup has a high moisture content, this can be checked in the following way: dip a piece of bread into the honey, and remove it after 8-10 minutes. Bread will harden in high-quality honey. If, on the contrary, it softened or completely spread, then in front of you is nothing more than sugar syrup.

Tricks of honey sellers designed for gullible buyers

First, plug your ears and don't listen to what they tell you. Check everything yourself. Of course, one honest seller can fall for a bunch of liars, but how do you know that the one who is standing in front of you is honest? Try honey not only from above, but also from the bottom of the jar. Feel free to put your spoon in the jar and don't listen to the salespeople who start yelling, "Don't ruin the product!"

Unheated honey - both fresh transparent and candied - is an effective antiseptic, and a clean spoon in a jar cannot spoil it. Another thing is if there was not honey at the bottom, or this honey was previously heated, which led to the loss of its antiseptic and all other healing properties.

Crystallization (saccharification) is a natural process for honey, which does not affect its quality and composition of nutrients. Don't let crystallized honey fool you. Do not come the next day to the seller who promised you uncrystallized honey. They will bring the same one, but warmed up. And in no case should you heat honey, because. this turns it into a simple sweet substance, devoid of so many useful properties!

It is not difficult to buy high-quality natural honey if you know how to choose it. You can avoid buying a fake bee product by learning a few tricks. About ways to distinguish real honey from a fake and what methods to use for this, read our material.

Any buyer should be able to recognize real honey and be able to distinguish it from a fake. Sometimes it happens that, focusing only on the appearance in the bank, a person buys a product, and when he comes home, he does not notice the substitution for a long time. Natural bee elixir must meet several mandatory points. Which one, see below:

First of all, you need to determine if there is a persistent smell. The aroma coming from the jar will always tell you which product is in front of you - real or fake. Honey, in which there are no syrups, which have not been boiled and mixed with various additives, smells like a honeycomb from a beehive - wax, nectar, pollen, sweetness, directly honey.
Natural sweetness is stored for a very long time without a change in taste, while fake goods almost always deteriorate, either begin to ferment, or delaminate and acquire an ugly forked texture.
The consistency of liquid bee gold is always quite thick, even if the mass is recently collected. A texture that is too thin indicates that the substance was diluted or collected too early.
Delicious in present condition, does not deteriorate after crystallization. Different varieties can thicken in different ways, it's all about storage conditions. Crystals can be either very small or quite large. But there should not be too large sugar "snowflakes" in the bee mass.
The weight of mature honey is at least 1.4 kilograms per liter.

How not to be confused with a fake?

So, how to determine that you have a counterfeit product? Pay attention to how the honey lies in the jar. This product should not delaminate. The homogeneity of the mass without sediment and foam, uniform color and the absence of large bubbles inside the jar indicates that the honey was stored in the right conditions.

Do not be afraid to taste or even rub the mass between your fingers. A real delicacy sticks well and forms an adhesive film, but a fake one leaves a feeling of excess moisture.

Honey should not splatter when dropped from a whisk or spoon. Distinguishing a watery substance from a fake is easy - put a small drop on a napkin. If a wet mark has formed near the stain, the mass is clearly diluted. A drop of this delicacy will keep its shape for a long time. This method is good for home use.

When tasting honey, scoop it with a spoon or a special whisk from the very bottom of the jar or other container in which it is poured. So you can find out if there is a candied layer below (if the container is opaque). If the bottom is thickened and the top is liquid, perhaps this is not a fake, but a mixture of several varieties.

You should not take such a product either, since mixing old, more mature and fresh honey can lead to a deterioration in taste. Thus, in order to distinguish a good product from a counterfeit, ordinary observation is also required.

If you can’t distinguish a fake from the original on your own, use the advice of experienced beekeepers.

Video "Distinguishing a real product from a fake"

Expert advice on how to distinguish natural honey without buying counterfeit. These recommendations and secrets will help you buy a really worthwhile product, the taste of which has no equal!

Honey is very useful for colds, it improves immunity and normalizes metabolism. Children especially need this product, it helps them resist diseases and improves brain activity. But all this applies only to natural honey. And recently, a lot of fakes have appeared on the market, which are difficult to determine at a glance. Those who care about their health should know how to distinguish real honey from a fake.

When buying on the market, you can come across not only a product diluted with sugar syrup, but also an outright fake. Unscrupulous manufacturers can add molasses, gelatin, starch and even sawdust to increase the volume.

You can fake honey even at the production stage. Beekeepers feed bees with sugar syrup, and they produce a product that contains almost no nutrients. It's just a sweet treat. You need to know how to distinguish real honey from a fake, so as not to harm your health. In order to make more profit, some unscrupulous farmers pull out the combs very early. Honey does not yet have time to ripen and remains useless.

How to check if honey is real while buying it? At room temperature, a fake can be identified by the consistency of the product. Try to mix the honey - it should not foam and have impurities. If you scoop a little from the jar onto a spoon and rotate it, you will see the quality of the product. Immature and

it will drain quickly. A real healing product should be viscous, wrap around a spoon, and if you want to pour it, it should not break into drops. A thin, even stream forms a small hill on the surface.

Only fresh honey can be liquid. After 3-6 months, it should harden and crystallize. Usually in stores for sale, it is heated, and it remains liquid for a long time. But such a product does not have any useful properties.

How to distinguish real honey from a fake taste? To be curative, it must contain only plant nectar. Therefore, real honey smells like flowers and has a slightly bitter taste. If you swallow it, then

you will feel your throat churn. A fake will be just a sweet treat, often with an admixture of foreign smells and tastes.

If you have already purchased the product and brought it home, how to distinguish real honey from a fake then? The easiest way is to stir it in water. It must dissolve completely. And to check if there are any impurities, drop a little iodine into the solution. If it turns blue, then there was starch or flour. Chalk impurities react to vinegar - it will foam and sizzle.

How to distinguish real honey from a fake yet? Dilute it with water and drop a little ammonia. If molasses is added to it, then the solution will turn brown and a precipitate will form. An easier way is to drip honey onto paper. It should not be absorbed and spread on the surface.

It is very important to know how to identify real honey for those who buy it for treatment. It should have bactericidal properties, so a piece of food put in honey should not spoil for a long time. If it is sour, foam and signs of fermentation appear, then the product is not suitable for treatment.

Liquid natural honey can only be within a month after it was collected. The honey collection lasts from the end of July to the end of September. If you are offered liquid honey in winter, it is most likely unnatural. High-quality real honey by this point should thicken and begin to crystallize.

2. Check if the honey is foaming

If honey foams on the surface, it means that fermentation processes are taking place in it. It begins when the volume of water in honey exceeds 20%. This honey is definitely not natural.

3. Smell the honey

Natural honey always has a characteristic smell. If the honey smells nothing, it has been produced artificially.

4. Check if the honey is stratifying

Take a close look at the container with honey and check if the mass is homogeneous. If the honey seems thicker at the bottom of the jar and thinner at the top, it's fake. Most likely, the manufacturer added an impurity. Often, unscrupulous manufacturers put a mixture of semolina with molasses at the bottom of the can.

5. Pay no attention to the color

Color is not an indicator of the quality of honey, it can only speak about its variety. For example, buckwheat and cherry honey are usually dark brown, while acacia honey is light. Other varieties of honey can be dark amber, amber, light yellow and even almost white.

It is interesting to look at familiar things from a different, sometimes bizarre angle. We don’t usually think about it, but many everyday products are brands promoted by mankind with valuable properties inherent in each of them. For example, bread is perceived as a kind of noble product, created by hard human labor, which, even in difficult times, can saturate a person and satisfy his hunger. Milk, and necessarily with the characteristic "village", gives strength and health to our main hope in life - children who rest outside the city with their grandparents. What is honey associated with? Perhaps honey is a healing mysterious formula of the fields and its main connoisseurs and guardians - bees.
Unfortunately, in our time, an aura of mystery and secrecy is inherent not only in honey, but in any product. It is very difficult to guess from what and in what conditions they make what they sell. There are several relatively simple ways to test honey for some parameters, though not all. Only the laboratory can give the most complete assessment. But something can be detected at home, without worrying about purchasing additional chemicals. But first you need to figure out how honey can look like outwardly.

Two honey states

The vast majority of honey varieties change their appearance: texture and color within a few months after harvest. This process is called crystallization (candied). Beekeepers use the term "dead honey". By consistency, honey becomes more like a viscous fat with large or small sugar crystals inside. Crystallization does not affect the beneficial properties of honey in any way: they are completely preserved. Basically, honey is candied 1-2 months after harvest, approximately in October. But there are deviations from this, for example, mustard honey in an open container thickens in 4-5 days, and honey from a white stock can stand until spring. If the honey is hermetically sealed, then it remains liquid longer.

Stone honey is a rather rare variety of honey that is collected by wild bees that settle in the crevices of rocks and rocks. This honey contains very little moisture and is so strong that it has to be broken into pieces. Therefore, it is often stored without containers, simply wrapped in something.

Candied honey is more difficult to fake because it is not easy to imitate this condition in appearance. When buying honey in winter, it is better not to take liquid honey - the probability is too high that the honey is not real or it is removed from the crystallized state by heating, which has a detrimental effect on the beneficial properties of the product. In the summer, the shrunken honey can be suspected of being last year's or even older.

Learning to distinguish varieties

Often sellers give out a less popular variety for a more purchased one. Therefore, it would be nice to have an idea of how to distinguish one honey from another. Varieties of honey differ depending on the type of plant, the pollen from which prevails in the product. You can distinguish them by color, aroma and taste. This matter is very difficult. There is no pure honey, collected from only one type of plant, because you can’t order bees “don’t go there, go here” and you won’t force them to pollinate only one specific field. In addition, the color and even the taste of honey depends on the area, the season of nectar collection. Remembering the subtlest shades of taste and distinguishing the predominance of one variety over another is an even more difficult task. However, a very wide range of colors for each variety can be described. MirSovetov will consider only a few varieties that can be found on the shelves.
acacia. Freshly picked honey is transparent. In the candied state, it is white, reminiscent of snow.

Buckwheat. The color of honey made from the nectar of buckwheat flowers is dark yellow, often with a noticeable reddish tint, sometimes dark brown.

Clover. Color from amber light to saturated amber.

Forest. The color varies from faint yellow to light brown, reddish.

Lime. The color is most often white to amber, and may be translucent. Yellowish and greenish shades are also acceptable.

Lugovoi. Color of light tones from yellow to brown.

Crimson. Although raspberries are red, the flowers are white, which is why the honey is light in color.

Methods for determining immature honey

The collected honey is sealed in honeycombs with wax caps. But they do not do it right away, but allow excess moisture to evaporate, along the way, workers supply honey with special substances that, by killing bacteria and microorganisms, do not allow honey to deteriorate. It turns out that the bees bring the already assembled and almost finished product to an ideal state. This process is called honey ripening. In a market where everyone is looking to get more and faster, many unscrupulous beekeepers empty their hives long before the bees think it's ready. This allows them, to the detriment of the quality of the product, to start selling it earlier than others, and the bees, left completely without honey, instinctively begin to harvest it more actively. What's wrong with raw honey? The main thing is that it contains too much moisture. And the point here is not even that you overpay for ordinary water, it’s even worse that the quality of the product suffers. Such honey is not stored for a long time, it quickly begins to ferment and changes its taste and healing qualities. The main thing that indicates the immaturity of honey is an excess of water in the product. This MirSovetov and offers to determine using the methods below.

Good honey can be stored for a very long time if it is kept in an inert environment that does not interact with the product. It is better not to use an iron container that is not enameled, it reacts with its contents. Instead of plastic storage, it is better to use ceramic or wooden utensils. In the old days, beekeepers kept honey in wooden barrels made of linden, properly smeared with wax. In them, honey has not deteriorated for several hundred years. Honey was revered by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians as the food of the gods. In the tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs, pots of honey were found, which has retained its food qualities to this day.

By density and viscosity. Mature honey is quite thick, flows down very beautifully: whole wide ribbons or elastic threads. To check the density, at a temperature of about 20 degrees, the following procedure is carried out. Scoop honey with a tablespoon, and then begin to rotate it, holding it horizontally. Mature honey, ending up in turn on the spoon, then under it, when the spoon is turned over, only has time to start stretching, hanging down from it, the viscous tape, being at the bottom, is wound on the spoon when turning. As a result, the spoon will be under the layers of honey from all sides, will be wrapped with them. If you stop rotating the spoon, then the honey will lazily flow from it, not immediately merging with the honey in the jar, it will spread, leaving a slide on the surface. If the honey is immature, then during rotation it will flow down without stopping, it will be more like glue. As a result, the streams are thin, do not stretch, often break off, perhaps even drip. And the surface of honey is quickly leveled.
By weight and volume. Honey in its composition contains many particles heavier than water. 1 liter of honey should weigh at least 1.4 kg, in extreme cases, you can risk buying a product weighing at least 1.2 kg. per litre. If the weight is less, then most likely the honey contains too much water, which makes it so light. When weighing in dishes, do not forget that the container itself, especially if it is glass or iron, has a significant weight. Therefore, pre-weigh the empty container, and the resulting weight must be subtracted from the result.
Paper wetting test. Put some honey on recycled paper such as newspaper. If the drop began to spread, the paper around it got wet, then this indicates an excessive content of water in the honey or unnatural honey. Real honey will not wet the newspaper, and the drop will be elastic.
By water absorption. If you put a piece of soft bread into honey, it will not get wet, maybe even become harder, because honey is very hygroscopic and well absorbs moisture and odors from the environment, practically dehydrating everything around. If the bread gets wet, then the product is spoiled.
"Carbonated" honey. Take a close look at the surface of the honey. If you saw a slight movement of bubbles emerging from the inside, foam on the surface, then honey fermented due to moisture, lack of protective substances due to its immaturity. Fermentation is also indicated by the sour smell and alcohol taste of honey. Such honey is spoiled and without heat treatment, which will devalue all the beneficial properties of honey, it is not suitable for food.
two layers. If you are going to buy honey that has already been candied and find that it has evenly stratified into two layers of different density, then you should know that this is most often caused by the immaturity of honey. If you are not sure of the quality, then it is better not to take such honey.

Methods for determining other additives

So that the buyer does not notice obvious signs of a damaged product, sellers sometimes go to various tricks. What is added to honey is something that has never been in it. This gives the honey a good natural appearance, masking its inherently poor condition. You can try to identify some tricks of sellers by the following methods.
Determination of foreign sediment. If you put a tablespoon of honey in a glass of warm water, then it should completely dissolve, sometimes making the water slightly cloudy. To be sure, you can heat the water up to 50 degrees to help the honey particles melt and mix in the water. If you find that after dissolving in water, a precipitate appeared that fell to the bottom or floated, then this indicates the presence of impurities in the honey.
Definition of chalk additive. The presence of chalk is determined using an acid, such as acetic acid. When chalk interacts with acetic acid, a reaction occurs with an intense release of carbon dioxide, a hiss can be heard. In water, it looks like boiling. For the test, it is better to take vinegar essence, and not acid diluted with water. The reaction may not be noticeable if there is too little chalk or acid has not got on it. For reliability, it is better to stir a little honey in water, wait until the chalk precipitates, carefully drain the water, leaving the chalk at the bottom, obtaining a concentration of chalk sufficient for the experiment.
Definition of Starch Additive. You can detect the addition of starch by dropping a little iodine into the honey. When iodine interacts with starch, a chemical reaction occurs, and iodine changes color to blue. The more intense the color, the more starch was contained in the product. There is no starch in natural honey, and a drop of iodine will remain unchanged in color. For the reliability of the test, it is better to dilute a little honey with water in a ratio of 1/2. Bring this solution to a boil and drop a little iodine there. If there was flour instead of starch in honey, then the result will be exactly the same.
Definition of starch syrup. It is revealed when it interacts with ammonia. The latter reacts with sulfuric acid, which is used in the molasses production process and remains in this food product in very small quantities. Ammonia is added in drops to an aqueous 50% solution of honey. If the solution changes color to brown and a precipitate of the same color forms, then the honey has been “flavored” with molasses.

Discovering artificial honey

Organoleptic test. Simply put, you need to taste honey. Natural honey should have a pleasant, slightly tart taste, it should melt completely in the mouth, leaving no sediment, solid particles, or strong crystals on the tongue. In natural honey, there can be nothing that does not dissolve in the mouth. You can also feel a slight irritation of the mucous membranes of the throat and nose, burning, tingling - this is also a good sign of natural honey. If you feel the taste of caramel, then most likely it is warmed honey. Such a product loses all its useful properties due to heat treatment. They heat it in order to pass off the already crystallized honey as freshly collected.
By heterogeneity. If you look closely, then natural honey will not be too homogeneous: you can distinguish wax and pollen in it in the form of small particles evenly distributed in the thick of honey. Sometimes (with poor filtration of honey) insect wings and other natural material can be found. If there are no particles at all, then honey is initially unnatural, but made from molasses, vegetable juices, and other substitute products. This cocktail is not harmful. But from honey there is nothing at all. During storage, artificial honey does not crystallize.

soft falsification

Among all natural varieties of honey, honeydew honey is distinguished because of its slightly different nature. Honeydew honey is of animal origin (it is collected from the sugary secretions of other insects), as well as vegetable (produced from the sticky secretions of plants and trees, which often fall to the ground, where bees pick them up). This honey appears in the combs if there is not enough nectar in the departure zone or there is none at all. The taste of such honey is bitter, its color is from greenish to dark, sometimes it is brown or even black. It is one of the most viscous varieties of honey, although if it contains a proportion of flower varieties, it can be less dense and lighter in color. The disadvantages of honeydew honey include its weak antibacterial properties and sometimes bad taste. The origin and short shelf life of this variety also does not make it popular, although it has its own unique set of useful trace elements.

Australian scientists in Queensland have identified the ability to count in bees, but only up to 4. They made their way out of the hive through a dark tunnel, where they placed bright markers that were easily visible to honey plants. On one of them, nectar was constantly located. When the bees got used to it, the treat was removed. However, despite the fact that scientists changed the shape, the distance between them and the location in the pipe of all the markers, the bees continued to show an increased interest in the one on the account that previously had nectar. But if the nectar was further than the 4th marker, then the bees do not pay attention to the label freed from the nectar.

Detection of honeydew honey. 96% ethyl alcohol is added to an aqueous 50% honey solution. It is not recommended to take another concentration of alcohol, otherwise the reaction may not occur. To one part of the honey solution, add 10 parts of alcohol. For the reaction to proceed, the mixture must be shaken several times. If the solution became very cloudy and white turbidity appeared, the flower honey was diluted with honeydew. If flakes of sediment fell out, then there may be no flower honey at all. In pure flower honeys, the appearance of turbidity is possible, but it will be weakly expressed. Thus, it is impossible to check varieties of honey containing, like honeydew, a large amount of nitrogenous substances. These include buckwheat and heather honey.
Another “grade” of honey, which, unlike honeydew, is not natural, they also try not to buy is sugar honey. Such honey appears in combs if the beekeeper feeds his honey plants with sugar syrup. This allows you to quickly fill the hives with a low-quality product, which in its performance is much closer to ordinary sugar than honey, and is sold at the price of the latter. At first glance, this honey can be attributed to natural, but experts clearly attribute it to counterfeit products.
Identification of sugar honey. It can be distinguished without additional experiments. Sugar honey is suspiciously white. If you try it, it looks more like sweetened water, the taste is relatively bland and empty, it lacks the astringency inherent in this product. The aroma is also weakened. Fresh honey is watery, and aged honey has a gelatinous consistency, weakly crystallizes. At home, you can test sugar honey with milk. If you add a little sugar honey to hot cow's milk, it will curdle.

Of course, the considered methods do not allow to reveal all falsifications. After all, there is also the threat of honey being infected with bee diseases and poisoning with “drunk” honey, the nectar for which is collected from trees that are poisonous to humans. Identification of these threats is possible only in laboratory conditions. But MirSovetov hopes that this article helped to determine at least some benchmark for quality honey.