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How to Verify the Purity of Honey

Three Methods:Examining Honey Before PurchasingConducting Tests at HomeDispelling Honey Purity MythsCommunity Q&A

Fake and impure honeys have become commonplace in the market today, despite many people's preference for 100% bee-produced honey. Unfortunately, unless you live in the European Union or Florida, you may not be able to trust "pure honey" labels. Because of the wide variety of honeys and the large number of sugar syrups or other ingredients that unscrupulous manufacturers dilute it with, no single home test is completely successful. Use several of these tests if possible to obtain a good guess about whether or not your honey is pure.

Examining Honey Before Purchasing

  1. 1
    Know your region's honey purity laws. Some countries or regional governments issue honey standards that require the mention of added substances. Others do not have laws relating to honey purity, or may release voluntary guidelines with no ability to enforce them. Try to find honey purity laws in your area so you know how much faith to put in honey labels in your local grocery store.
    • Any product sold in the European Union as honey must be free of additives by law, including antibiotics used to treat bees for disease.[1] Any honey with defects seriously affecting the taste must be sold as "baker's honey" intended for use in processed foods.[2]
    • The United States government does not test for honey purity, and allows trace amounts of antibiotics. A USDA logo does not mean the honey is pure.[3]
    • Florida is the only U.S. state that requires honey to display all additives as long as it is both manufactured and sold within Florida.[4] Beware substances sold under a different name, such as "honey blends" or "honey products," which do not fall under this law.[5]
  2. 2
    Check the label, but don't take it for granted. Check around the brand name or logo in addition to the ingredient list to check for "additives" or "added flavors." Pure honey should only have one ingredient: honey. However, even if no other ingredients are listed, the manufacturer may not be telling the truth.
  3. 3
    Taste the honey if a sample is offered. Tasting is not an accurate way to test for additives, but if taste is your main concern, it could be all you need to make a decision. Note that a "weird" taste does not necessarily mean the honey isn't pure. There are many varieties of honey made from the nectar of different flowers, saps, or even the secretions of sap-eating insects.[6] Each of these produces different flavors, and even the honey of one beehive can vary from year to year as they collect nectar from different sources.
    • Most sellers will not allow you to open a jar before purchasing. Ask whether you can taste a sample, but do not insist if one is not available.

Conducting Tests at Home

  1. 1
    Understand that these tests are not 100% accurate. Honey's wonderful, delicious variety works against you when you're trying to find a simple test. Different types of pure honey can cover a large range of density, flammability, and other characteristics. While the following tests are based on true principles, in practice your results may be inconclusive. Try several of these tests to see if the honey fails or passes consistently. In many cases, you can get nothing more than a good guess.
  2. 2
    Add a spoonful of liquid honey to warm water. Add a spoonful of honey to a glass of warm water, stirring slowly or not at all. If the honey has been mixed with certain kinds of sugar syrup, it will dissolve in the water. Most pure honeys, and unfortunately some adulterated honeys as well, will stick together and sink as a solid lump, or remain stuck as a lump on the spoon.
    • Note that pure or adulterated honey is also sold in creamed (evenly crystallized) form or solid honeycomb form. These will always be difficult to dissolve, whether or not the honey is pure.
  3. 3
    Set fire to a cotton pad or candle wick dipped in honey. This test only checks for added water in the honey, which may prevent the honey from burning. Dip a cotton pad or the cotton wick of a candle into a bit of the honey, and shake off the excess. Attempt to light the cotton pad or wick. If it burns easily, then it probably has no added water, but may or may not have other substances added. If it refuses to burn or makes a cracking sound instead, water may have been added.[7]
  4. 4
    Drop honey on blotting paper or a paper towel. If honey has been diluted with water, it may be absorbed or leave a wet mark on an absorbent material such as blotting paper. Pure honey should not be absorbed, but unfortunately neither will honey diluted with most sugar syrups.

Dispelling Honey Purity Myths

  1. 1
    Don't let ants make your decision for you. Ants are interested in anything sweet and nutritious. Ants will eat honey, colored corn syrup, and anything in between.
  2. 2
    Realize that mixing honey and alcohol is not a useful test. Some sources claim that mixing impure honey into methylated spirits or other alcohol will dissolve it and make the solution milky, while pure honey will stay undissolved at the bottom. Other sources claim the exact opposite! This myth dates back at least to 1893, and was not accepted by professional beekeepers even then.[8]
  3. 3
    Be skeptical about claims of pure honey turning one direction or forming shapes. There are several myths around the internet about only pure honey turning clockwise when poured, or only pure honey forming hexagons when left on a plate and covered with water. There is no scientific evidence that impure honey will behave differently in these situations.
  4. 4
    Test additional claims yourself. There are many anecdotes floating around about different ways you can test honey for purity, and many of them have not been scientifically tested. If you think something sounds plausible, try testing a jar of honey you think is pure. Then mix it with agave syrup, sugar syrup, or some other added sugar and perform the same test. If you consistently get different results with the diluted syrup than with the pure honey, the test might be useful. Keep in mind that no one household test can detect every possible additive in honey, however.

Community Q&A

Add New Question
  • Can crystallized honey return to its original liquid form after it has been at room temperature?
    wikiHow Contributor
    If the honey has crystallized, put the jar in hot water or in a heated double boiler and stir the honey until all the crystals have been dissolved. Never go higher than 62 degrees C, or you will lose all the nutrition.
  • Does honey become solid at cold temperatures?
    wikiHow Contributor
    Yes, honey crystallizes over time, and cold temperatures speeds up this process. Some honey varieties crystallize faster than others, so it's not a good way to test purity.
  • Will honey freeze on cold days?
    wikiHow Contributor
    There is not enough water in honey to freeze. Actually, honey is a supersaturated sugar solution. That means that there is more dissolved solids that can normally remain in the liquid phase. Honey is more sugar than water, it contains only 18 percent water and that is not enough to freeze. So no, honey won't freeze.
  • If I suspect honey is not pure, how do I report the manufacturer for improper labeling?
    wikiHow Contributor
    If you're in the United States, contact your region's FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinators. Many other countries have a similar food safety authority you can contact.
  • Can I store bottles of honey in a refrigerator to protect them from ants?
    wikiHow Contributor
  • Is there an expiration date on real honey?
    wikiHow Contributor
    No. Honey can be stored for eternity. The expiration dates on packaging are intended to indicate how long the packaging remains good.
  • Can we store honey in the refrigerator? Does it freeze?
    wikiHow Contributor
    Yes, you can store it in the refrigerator with no issue. Honey is basically supersaturated sugar which contains less than 20% water, so it will not able to be freeze.
  • What symbol appears on real, pure honey?
    wikiHow Contributor
    All honey is real pure honey, there are no GMO bees. Honey never goes bad either so almost all honey is real pure honey. Of course, honey can be adulterated by the retailer but that's dependent on where you live and you should notice that there is something odd about the honey.
  • How to check to see if honey is truly pure?
    wikiHow Contributor
    Get a sample and dissolve it into water in a clear jar using a spoon. If you cannot see through the water, your honey contains bee pollen. For a more scientific result (to see if the honey is mixed with syrup or anything else), send it to a lab to test the sugar composition.
  • What does it mean to be "pasteurized?"
    wikiHow Contributor
    To be heated at a high enough temperature to kill bacteria.
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  • Honey purchased at a farmers' market or from a local beekeeper is more likely to be pure.
  • Honeycombs are more likely to be pure, since they are taken straight from the beehive. However, some beekeepers feed their bees artificial sugar or syrup, which can make them produce adulterated honey directly in the honeycomb.
  • Crystallized or granulated honey may be more likely to be pure, since some common sugar additives may not crystallize properly. This is not a reliably test, however. Learning how to liquify honey is invaluable if you choose to buy crystallized honey.
  • Scientists who analyze honey use a mass spectrometer to separate the molecules in the honey, detecting different types (isotopes) of carbon molecules associated with different sugars in a process called stable isotope ratio analysis.[9] Even then, some added syrups may still go undetected.[10]



Things You'll Need

  • Honey
  • Water
  • A candle with a cotton wick
  • A lighter
  • Blotting paper
  • A cup

Article Info

Featured Article

Categories: Featured Articles | Food Safety | Honey

In other languages:

Français: vérifier la pureté du miel, Italiano: Verificare la Purezza del Miele, Español: verificar la pureza de la miel, Deutsch: Die Reinheit von Honig prüfen, Português: Verificar a Pureza do Mel, Русский: проверить чистоту меда, 中文: 检测蜂蜜的纯度, Čeština: Jak poznat pravý med, Nederlands: De puurheid van honing bepalen, Bahasa Indonesia: Menguji Keaslian Madu, ไทย: ตรวจสอบความบริสุทธิ์ของน้ำผึ้ง, हिन्दी: शहद की शुद्धता जाँचें, العربية: التأكد من نقاء عسل النحل, Tiếng Việt: Phân biệt Mật ong Nguyên chất

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