First, a few words about the product itself. We all know that this is nectar collected by bees from flowers of different plants. The type of plant determines what color, aroma and taste the final product will have.

Nectar is 80% water, and after it is processed by bees, this figure is reduced to 20% due to the wind in the hive. The buzzing insects wait patiently for the mass to reach the desired consistency and then seal the honeycomb with wax.

Honeycombs, like everything we get from these insects – pollen, bee bread, wax, honey, are also very useful. These products have excellent properties. In the first place is the anti-inflammatory effect, it was not for nothing that our grandmothers advised to drink tea with this sweetness during illness.

It also has antiviral and bactericidal properties. It is able to suppress such microorganisms as staphylococcus, streptococcus, E. coli. It helps with diseases of the stomach and intestines, lungs and liver. It is also useful for treating herpes, thrush and other skin conditions.

Honey varieties

Most often, honey is named after the type of plant from which the bees harvested. These types, for example, include: linden, acacia, chestnut, eucalyptus, buckwheat. At the place of collection, honey can be:

meadow / field;
forest / taiga;
mountain;
steppe;
flooded (from plants growing along water bodies).

Another popular division is by region: Bashkir, Caucasian, Altai and others. The first of them is considered the most popular in Russia.

All honey is divided into 2 main categories:

Monofloral. This product is based on 1 plant variety. Its concentration is at least 40%. Examples: acacia, lime, buckwheat.
Polyfloral (mixed). This means that honey is collected from several honey plants. If the product is called “floral” or “meadow”, then its composition is varied.

The composition of honey affects its properties. For example, monofloral lime honey fights dry coughs, and acacia honey is especially good for the heart. But this does not mean that polyfloral honey is less useful. It just has a less directional effect.

Russian honey

A healthy treat can be bought in almost any country. But Russia is famous for its honey more than others. Our bee product can be brought as a gift to foreigners. Or buy as a gift to loved ones as a present from another region of the country. It is not only Bashkiria that is famous for its honey. In Sochi, they sell wonderful mountain, tangerine, acacia honey. In Crimea, take meadow or linden. Bring Siberian fireweed from Baikal. In a word, in every corner of Russia it is worth going to the market or to a specialized store to find a unique product.

Good brands of honey can be found in supermarkets too. Do an external review and then do home tests. Or write out the brand names from the Roskntrol website. One drawback is that it is unrealistic to test all brands and types of products, so the list is limited. But you can check goods that are not recommended for purchase.

Diluted with sugar syrup or cheap honey (according to the RK) product brands:

365 days;
First thing;
Cedar forest;
Summer in the apiary;
Honey evenings;
Rumela.

And antibiotics were found in the honey of the Talisman trademark.

Others turned out to be excellent. There is really a lot of good honey in Russia: both in supermarkets and in markets.

Overseas product

EU standards for honey are strict, so European quality certificates are expensive. There are almost no fakes in supermarkets – violations are not in the best interests of sellers. In markets, goods must be checked visually or by taste.

We advise you to find interesting varieties. For example, it is worth bringing thyme honey from Cyprus, tangerine and chestnut honey from Georgia or Abkhazia, and pine honey from Turkey. Be sure to pay attention to local product types. Bazaars in any country will tell you exactly which variety is considered “home”, special.

Manuka honey is one of the most expensive in the world. It is obtained from the nectar of the New Zealand tea tree. The plant has powerful anti-inflammatory properties, which is why manuka honey is called a superfood. It is even said to fight cancer cells. Research has just begun, so it’s too early to draw conclusions. But to strengthen immunity and against colds, buying such a product, of course, is worth it.

Always bring a jar of healthy treats as a present to your loved ones. Honey is healthy, tasty and very soulful!

Definition of quality honey

It is important to understand that there are several options and methods at once how to check and determine the quality of honey for naturalness, and most of them can be implemented at home.

Therefore, after purchase, you can make sure it is real or not. This is very important, since only a high-quality product can not only have the most beneficial effect on the human body, but also prevent negative side effects.

You should not neglect all possible options for determining quality in order to separate the fake from the pure, free of impurities.

Possible additives

Before proceeding with the definition of falsification, it is necessary to understand how it is falsified and what is added to it. Here are the possible substances mixed into the product to form fake bee nectar:

Sugar syrup. It is this type of counterfeit that is most difficult to distinguish from the real one. And they do it quite often. Sometimes the bees are simply fed with sugar syrup, which also does not impart useful valuable properties to the nectar from these striped insects. It may harm the body – most likely not, but the benefit is excluded.
Starch or starch syrup.
Here’s how else they counterfeit – add saccharin, chalk and flour. A counterfeit may also contain sawdust and other substances, but still show signs of a natural component pumped out of the honeycomb.

Based on the understanding of what may be in the composition, it will not be a secret for anyone that such a substance can only negatively affect health. It is for these reasons that checking honey for composition, quality and the presence of those components that should not be in it is so important. Methods for determining quality can be both visual and by analyzing chemical reactions.

And if the detection of organoleptic properties, such as smell, taste, color and consistency can be detected at the time of purchase, then chemical reactions are checked in a home or laboratory.

External signs

After the types of honey falsification are known, it is necessary to learn how to establish the quality of such nectar. It can be completely different.

Here’s how to distinguish between natural, high quality and artificial when assessing visual parameters:

The color of the nectar must always match the variety. But, regardless of this, transparency and frequency should be present, without any inclusions and impurities. Presence of sediment, white grains and turbid fractions is not allowed. If all this is present, then honey is bad and may contain starch and chalk.
If the color is too light, then, most likely, sugar is present in the composition. Here, the only exception is the acacia variety, which has a certain turbidity in consistency and a long crystallization period.
Here’s how you can recognize fake honey through tactile contact with it. It is necessary to rub a pea of nectar between your fingers, while after a while it should be completely absorbed into the skin.

Smell

You can understand that you have a jar of high-quality nectar in front of you by its aroma. High-quality, real chestnut or buckwheat have a tart aroma that allows you to identify a fake.

Linden, herbs, acacia and other varieties may have a more delicate smell. But he is present. Although in some variants it may be too weak. But for a bad one, the smell will be practically absent, which distinguishes it from the natural one.

Viscosity

The consistency should be soft, creamy and always uniform. In summer and autumn, the consistency is liquid and slightly viscous. In winter, due to sugaring, it changes to thick. It is important to remember that with the exception of honey from acacia, linden, chestnut and Greek, all the others should crystallize by winter, and these remain in a liquid state, which allows you to check them for naturalness. So by viscosity it is possible to determine low-quality nectar from hives.

How to distinguish real honey?

There are many ways to check – some of them are simple, others require the necessary tools.

A plate of water

Everyone has seen the honeycomb in which the bees seal the honey. If you pour cold water on the bottom of a plate, put a spoonful of the product and gently swing it clockwise, it will gather in a pattern that repeats the honeycomb. If the liquid becomes cloudy, this is a fake.

By setting fire

Put some honey on the paper and light it on fire. It will burn, but paper particles will remain where it is smeared. If everything burned out without a trace with the release of a specific aroma of caramel or chemistry, this is a fake.

Paper

Place a drop of bee product on a piece of paper and wait a minute. If he does not saturate it, then the product is natural. A wet spot protruding from the other side is a sign of the presence of water in the composition.

With a chemical pencil

Put some syrup on your hand and rub, then take a chemical pencil and try to trace. If it does not remain, then you are dealing with natural high-quality honey, otherwise this is a product that has been diluted with syrup.

Bread

Put a small amount of the composition in a saucer. Put a small piece of bread on top, so that the bakery product touches its entire plane with a liquid or already sugared consistency. Leave it all for a while.

It is the real one that will completely enter the pores of the crumb or be absorbed into its structure, but the artificially mixed one will not. It will remain completely on the saucer. And the bread from it can either harden slightly, or, conversely, completely soften and crumble into components.

Vinegar

Here’s how to distinguish real honey from fake honey at home and reveal the chalk content. Since chalk is a substance with an alkaline structure, when mixed with an acidic substance, it will necessarily give a reaction that is easy to determine visually.

So, you just need to dissolve a small amount of the substance from the honeycomb (no more than 1 tablespoon) in a glass of slightly warm water until completely homogeneous. Then pour 1 tablespoon of vinegar there.

If at the same time there is a specific hissing with the formation of a light foam, then it means that there is chalk in the product.

How to check honey for naturalness at home

1 Visually determine how thick the honey is. Due to the low water content (no more than 17–20%), “ripe”, properly aged honey will form like a pagoda slide when poured from jar to jar. Otherwise, a pit will be visible during transfusion. This is the first sign that the honey has been ripped out of the honeycomb frame unsealed and unripe. There are several reasons for this: it is more convenient for the beekeeper to download honey, because the honeycomb does not need to be opened. Another option is high environmental humidity, heavy rains and cold, as a result – the bee does not have time to evaporate moisture.

2 By weight, 1 kg of honey will take about 0.8 liters of container, otherwise it is diluted with water, there are such fly-keepers and honey sellers.

3 When pouring honey, an uninterrupted honey thread is drawn. If it drips, then you should think about whether you need such honey?

4 Good honey has a specific floral aroma, depending on the honey plant from which it is collected.

5 Important feature! Liquid honey is only downloaded or some varieties.

Acacia honey remains liquid for several years, like vegetable oil, gradually thickens over time, but remains without a crystal, all other varieties thicken and shrink.

Linden honey remains liquid for a long time. Then it acquires a snow-white oily consistency. Real linden honey tastes like medicine. In general, natural honey has a bitter taste, it can even tear the throat, this is a good sign of quality and endurance.

Chestnut, a dark variety of honey, has a brown tint, it retains a liquid state for about 6 months, if properly stored – and a whole year. After sugaring, the color does not change, the crystals are constantly growing.

Melilot also remains liquid for several months, then sits down.

Everything else that is presented in liquid form in autumn and winter is most likely warmed honey or sugar syrup.

6 By the way, sugar syrup is not sugar-coated. But real honey has this property. The fact is that honey is a living product, although it has no expiration date. The crystal grows as the honey ripens. The size of the crystal (grains) depends on the amount of glucose in honey, it is different in one or another type of honey, therefore it turns out fine-grained, coarse-grained, fat-like (barely distinguishable).

7 Genetic memory of honey. The honey was downloaded from the honeycomb, so when smeared on a saucer with the addition of water and with slight loosening, it will repeat the hexagonal shape of the honeycomb. This can save you from purchasing a product that the bees have not even tried. You can always check at home.

8 Chinese honey is a separate variety, one might say. Chinese partners have occupied the world market due to their cheapness and with the help of tricks. And so that no one knows that honey is from China, they overheat it and, under pressure, remove pollen particles, direct evidence pointing to the plant and its place of growth.

9 Negligent beekeepers like to increase honey bribes, and as a result – and profits, with the help of sugar syrup… It is almost impossible to distinguish such honey. The bee eats the syrup, mixes it with the nectar, and voila – you get liquid May honey. Did the bee bring it? Bee! Was it in the honeycombs? Was! Does it smell like honey? Of course it smells! It turned out everyone’s favorite liquid May acacia honey, albeit not so fragrant and not so healthy. Sometimes we ourselves become the cause of our deception. Or rather, our taste preferences. Let not liquid, but real. The hard and often thankless work of the beekeeper leads to the fact that he simply becomes “outbid”. This has happened to many. Having met an “old”, respected beekeeper, who had not only a large apiary, but also a store, he learned that he no longer keeps bees, but he buys a lot of cheap sunflowers, orders flavors from China and makes more than 10 varieties of honey, which you definitely do not have anywhere find. By the way, his taste is excellent, and the smell, and people are queuing up to him. But only the name remained of the honey. Because heated honey is no longer honey.

10 There is no cedar honey (cedar does not emit nectar), sea buckthorn honey is also a product of crazy imagination. Have you seen sea buckthorn forests somewhere or at least plantations? But in some miraculous way, bees find them at such “real” beekeepers.

11 If a real beekeeper, and his bees are correct, then he simply cannot have more than 6-7 varieties of honey. The maximum that a nomadic beekeeper can drive and collect is the very six and maximum seven varieties of honey, and then they are mixed in part. After all, you cannot order a bee: “Fly here, collect from this flower!”, She flies and collects within a radius of up to 5 km from her house, from the best honey plant. And what it will be, it does not matter to her, 80% from the sunflower field and 20% from the buckwheat field, or vice versa, the main thing is not to fly far.

The main melliferous regions of our country are Rostov, Krasnodar, Voronezh, Volgograd. Surprisingly, there are few honey plants in the Caucasus, only 20% of the sold honey is local bottled. The rest are purchased varieties from the above regions. Famous Bashkir and Altai beekeepers often come to our south for a wholesale consignment of our honey. And then they can be found somewhere at a fair in Moscow or St. Petersburg, actively offering the wonderful product of Bashkir melliferous plants. There is no advertising or denigration of certain regions. We all got into the same market conditions, we have to spin. Only someone is spinning at the expense of deception. And someone is trying to make quality, the second has fewer chances, all hope is on the end customer, or rather on the level of his awareness.

12 Blended honey is not scary! There is such a type of honey as cream honey. It’s simple, as soon as the honey has been pumped out and it has not left a sediment, a small portion of the shrunk honey is added to it, which gives all the honey the grain that the beekeeper needs. Thus, all the honey takes on the form that it “saw”. Example. It is worth inadvertently forgetting frozen honey in a honey extractor, even in a small amount, when more liquid is added overnight, it turns into a thick one. There are many ways to determine naturalness, and yet the best way is to acquire from those people whose cleanliness and conscience you do not doubt.

13 Royal jelly is extremely small, and it happens only in the spring when the bees are in a natural swarm state, when they breed new Queens. And for sure, the honey will not be white due to the content of royal jelly in it. The best way is to take royal jelly natural – it is immediately mixed with a small amount of honey or directly in a sealed wax bowl.

This 2019, due to the mass destruction of bees in our country, the price of honey will grow, and a large number of counterfeits is also expected. But you shouldn’t give up your favorite product, but you just need to figure it out – it’s not at all difficult.

Honey consistency

Real honey has it homogeneous, without impurities and stratifications, at the bottom there should be no sediment. Depending on the season, it can be liquid (from young honey collected in summer) or thick, so-called “candied” honey. Such crystallized honey, as a rule, becomes lighter, more unclear.

In this regard, the quality of liquid honey, which can be seen on store shelves in winter, is questionable. Its liquid consistency suggests that the product was falsified or that the honey could be “dissolved” (melted) to give it a marketable appearance. Although it is also possible that the bees were fed sugar.

The only exception is acacia honey, which crystallizes slowly and can retain its liquid consistency longer.

The fluidity of honey

The indicator is effective in assessing the quality of fresh honey. If you put a spoon in a container with honey, scoop it up a little and lift it up, it will stretch for a long time, flowing in an even stream onto a plate, without breaking and forming a pea. The last drop springs back and pulls back to the spoon.

When the spoon is rotated around its axis, natural honey is wound around it, while the fake will drain. And if the jar with honey is turned upside down, the air bubble (it should be one and large) should rise in the direction from the lid to the bottom of the jar.

There is also such a trick: you can rub a drop of honey between your fingers. Natural is completely absorbed into the skin, the fake will form a lump and will roll

Taste

Real honey is distinguished not only by a pleasant sweet taste, astringency, but also by a slight bitterness in the aftertaste. After a quality product, there must be a sore throat.

Scent

Natural honey can be distinguished from fake honey by its smell. In a quality product, it is unobtrusive, natural, floral. The counterfeit smells very cloying, unnatural, harsh, there may be an admixture of caramel.

Color

Depending on which honey plant the nectar was collected from, honey can change its color from light yellow to dark brown. So, lime honey is amber, buckwheat honey is brown, and flower honey is light yellow.

If you see white honey, it can be not only acacia, but also a product obtained by processing sugar. In this case, the bees are fed sugar syrup, which they process like regular nectar. And although even in laboratory conditions it is difficult to distinguish natural honey from fake, in terms of its health benefits, it cannot be compared with natural honey.

The brown color of honey can be achieved not only by collecting nectar from buckwheat fields, but also by overheating last year’s honey. At the same time, it heats up over 40 ° C and loses all its beneficial properties. Be vigilant if such honey is offered to you in spring or early summer.

The situation with May honey is also interesting, which many lovers of this delicacy are waiting for. Theoretically, of course, you can pump it out in May. But the problem is that this honey is needed by the bee family in order to feed the brood. If honey is taken from the family in May, the worker bees will be weak, lethargic, which will significantly reduce the amount of the collected product. Therefore, it is unlikely that a good owner will make such sacrifices and risks. Be carefull.

Memo

Buy honey only from trusted beekeepers and in season. Remember that honey is pumped out not earlier than June, when the first plants begin to bloom. Then go shopping. Moreover, it is better to buy for a whole year, and for wholesale you can ask for a discount.

Another way to check the quality of honey is if the beekeeper has honey in the combs. It is almost impossible to fake it, and in the absence of such, you can doubt the quality of honey.

In order not to be fooled when buying, please note that 1 liter of mature honey must weigh at least 1.4 kg.

If a piece of candied honey is set on fire, it should melt silently. Hissing and crackling will give out a fake head.

In order for honey to bring exclusively benefits to your health, do not be lazy to evaluate the quality of the purchase before use. And if necessary, you can hand over honey to a laboratory for an expert quality assessment.

How not to spoil after purchase?

The issue of storage and use of a beekeeping product is always relevant. Let’s consider simple rules:

Tara. Honey should be stored in a glass container with a hermetically sealed lid. Any metal container is oxidized, which can lead to the loss of useful properties.
Storage conditions. Ideally, it is better to store honey in a dark and cool place (from 5 to 15, maximum – up to 20 degrees).
Storage duration. The shelf life of any variety, subject to storage rules, is not limited.
Submission rules. In no case should honey be added to hot tea, coffee and other drinks. At temperatures above 60 degrees, it practically does not change its organoleptic properties, but it loses most of its vitamins and minerals. That is why candied honey should not be heated to improve flavor and fluidity.

Honey is a natural product. To preserve all the benefits, it is recommended to be careful with storage and serving.

How we fell for the fake honey

Before writing about methods of checking honey, I would like to tell you about my personal experience, what kind of fake we came across. We bought a 3 liter jar of honey. At the top was honey, about 1/3 of the can, and at the bottom was sugar mixed with honey. And it was very disappointing, considering that we deliberately do not eat sugar.

As soon as the sugar layer began, it became noticeable in taste and texture. The honey taste practically disappeared at once, the mass was simply sweet and had a weakly expressed honey taste. The honey itself was already candied, so the sugar grains were disguised as crystallized honey.

We wouldn’t have noticed the difference if we hadn’t been eating real candied honey. Such honey has a completely different texture and taste of sugar, it is difficult to explain its properties, but I will try: it is brittle on the teeth, not as hard as ordinary sugar and the sensations from it are as if sugar has not completely dissolved in honey.

In general, the conclusion from this situation is this: if you buy honey in large quantities, then only from trusted beekeepers, or have bees and be sure of the naturalness and benefits of the product.

What varieties are counterfeited

If we talk about why they are forging, then the answer is unambiguous and understandable – to get more profit. Sometimes there are species in which there is no sweet component at all from the bee hive. And this can be found in markets and shops. This is a very gross falsification, which, if desired, is fairly easy to recognize.

It is true only if the buyer is not happy to be deceived himself. After all, some, in pursuit of cheapness, are ready to buy anything, just to spend less money on it. But this approach to this type of food is completely inappropriate and unjustified. After all, health can be harmed, and then spend money on medicines and healing. And you can immediately purchase high-quality nectar from the apiary, which was actually collected by bees in the apiary. And they will become a real panacea for many diseases, and will not only be a valuable source of taste.

But for this you need to know exactly how to identify a fake. Indeed, in some cases it is possible to fake honey even in combs. To do this, it is enough just to feed the insects with sugar syrup. In this case, there will be no pollen and nectar collected from flowering plants among the components. And, accordingly, a certain benefit is excluded.

Therefore, no matter where you buy any sort of nectar, buckwheat, acacia, herbs or anything else, you need to pay attention to all of the above signs that characterize the composition, consistency, organoleptic properties of the substance. In this case, a low-quality purchase is practically excluded. If you are plagued by certain doubts that you can purchase a small volume, make sure that there are no impurities, and then purchase the required amount there.

Comparison table of real honey and artificial

	Natural honey	Fake
Visually	looks thick, when poured into a container, it folds up a hill	spreads instantly
Appearance	viscous consistency, honey stretches with a thin thread	counterfeit does not naturally roll
Taste	has no sourness and foreign smell	artificial product smell bad
To the touch	take a drop and rub it between your fingers – it will be absorbed	if not absorbed then it is fake
Smell	has a pronounced aroma that is difficult to confuse with anything. It is more intense in dark varieties and less pronounced in light	if it is not there or a clear caramel aroma is felt – it is sugar diluted with water with a dye *
Consistency	in summer, there can be no fresh candied honey on sale, only rapeseed immediately thickens after harvesting. There is also acacia, which remains liquid throughout its shelf life. It usually crystallizes by winter. Therefore, in the fall, buy only candied – this is a sign of naturalness.	if in the fall or even more so in winter they sell you liquid honey, most likely this is a fake
Into the light	the natural product is transparent, it should not contain any inclusions	sellers often say that this is just crystallization, but this quality indicates the presence of impurities

* – the only exception is clover honey, but this is a rare and odorless variety.

Conclusion

Thus, it is quite easy to detect fake honey, even outside the laboratory.
Just a few tests or trials can be applied to get a reliable result and decide on the level of confidence in the manufacturer and the quality of the product.
Most of the differences can be detected even with the naked eye at the first contact with honey: mass and volume, density and fluidity, taste and aroma.

Sources used and useful links on the topic: https://sekreti-domovodstva.ru/kak-otlichit-nastoyashhij-med-ot-poddelki.html https://zen.yandex.com/media/trip_advice/kak-otlichit-naturalnyi ot—med poddelki-sovety-po-vyboru-5e992bb2a6e0872a7ce0311a https://DomPchel.ru/med/proverka-naturalnosti/ https://originalpoddelka.ru/produkty/kak-opredelit-nastoyashhiy-med/ https: // www.oum.ru/yoga/pravilnoe-pitanie/kak-proverit-med-na-naturalnost/ https://zen.yandex.ua/media/id/5c9729a6a354b200b305d445/10-sposobov-otlichit-nastoiascii-med-ot- poddelki-5c97d4331a1ea000b4de18a2 https://WikiFood.online/food/kak-proverit-med-na-naturalnost.html https://travart.ru/kak-otlichit-nastoyashchij-med-ot-poddelki

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