Hooray for North Carolina!

[FRAMEshift]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/24/funny-honey-targeted-by-s_n_737653.html

RALEIGH, N.C. — You might call them the Honey Police – beekeepers and honey producers ready to comb through North Carolina to nab unscrupulous sellers of sweet-but-bogus "funny honey."

North Carolina is the latest state to create a standard that defines "pure honey" in a bid to curb the sale of products that have that label but are mostly corn syrup or other additives. Officials hope to enforce that standard with help from the 12,000 or so Tar Heel beekeepers.

"The beekeepers tend to watch what's being sold, they watch the roadside stands and the farmer's markets," said John Ambrose, an entomologist and bee expert at North Carolina State University who sits on the newly created Honey Standards Board.

Florida was the first state to adopt such standards in 2009. It's since been followed by California, Wisconsin and North Carolina.

[iddee]

I do think it is a great thing, but I have one worry.

There are hobbyist and sideliner beeks within a mile or two of some commercial beeyards. The commercials are feeding 100 plus gallons of hfcs at a time. Will the neighboring beeks have contaminated honey unknowingly?

[specialkayme]

I believe, but I'm not sure, that "funny honey" refers to honey that have additives mixed in AFTER extracting. Feeding HFCS before extracting wouldn't create "funny honey", but adding it to a bottle would. If the laws were attempting to stop selling honey from people who add HFCS to feeders, they would have to also attack those feeding sugar. It's a slippery slope from there to determine what "pure honey" is. Restricting additives, however, is straight forward and unambiguous.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though.

[FRAMEshift]

I think specialk is right.  I would guess they will be testing for the presence of sugar that has not been exposed to the invertase enzyme.  HFCS added after extraction would be obvious because of the low ratio of invert sugar.  There could be other marker proteins that would be diluted in funny honey.

[iddee]

I hope you are right.
Another thing is the pollen. If a honey is labeled sourwood, clover, or any thing else, the pollen in it must be more than 50% from that plant, or it will be considered falsely labeled.

There are a few things that will have to be ironed out, but overall, I think it is great, and well past due.

[FRAMEshift]

I hope you are right.
Another thing is the pollen. If a honey is labeled sourwood, clover, or any thing else, the pollen in it must be more than 50% from that plant, or it will be considered falsely labeled.

There are a few things that will have to be ironed out, but overall, I think it is great, and well past due.

Despite the title of the article, there is not any inspection or "honey police" aspect to this.  I gather that the State of North Carolina will respond to complaints from the public. What it really does is make it possible for third parties to sue the sellers of falsely labeled honey in civil court.  It may still not be worth the trouble to sue small producers selling from roadside stands in the mountains.  But it will be possible to sue large resellers (like Walmart) if they sell falsely labeled honey.

[iddee]

Dr. Ambrose talked about the NC honey standard at the EAS meeting in Boone. I imagine the law was taken mostly from there. He stated that any honey not containing 51% or more pollen from the plant it was labeled as, would be in violation of the proposed standard. As I understood him, anyone could buy a container and have it tested. If it were not up to the standard, the law would take over there.

[AllenF]

I think it would be good that at least some of the honey is getting tested.  I see a lot that people call "this and that" honey.  I argued with one who was selling his clover honey from around me.   There ain't enough clover here to call it that.  Look at the 2 million flowers that get tapped to make just one pound of honey.  And this may at least stop some of the watered down with "sweeteners" honey. 

[hardwood]

I think that this is good and well intentioned, anything that can give legal teeth to the fight against illegal "bogus" imports can't be all bad right? HOWEVER, When the legislation is defined so strictly as to open the possibility of such close scrutiny to true local pure honey producers...pollen I.D. etc, it becomes just another tool for the big hand of "the Man" to keep the brother down.

Scott

[caticind]

The article doesn't mention pollen count at all, and specifically rules out penalizing people who feed processed sugars that are then converted by the bees.

The funny honey targeted by the new law is honey which is diluted in the bottling process.

[Bee Happy]

:p glad I looked before posting the same article.