Need legal minds....

[BjornBee]

On another thread, it was indicated that feeding sugar or HFCS is considered a "chemical". And I suppose we can throw in the contaminates of smoking, and any number of things. And since the bees will drag in chemicals from down the road, can we really be using labels with "Pure" anymore.

Since I have never seen anyone pay for honey analysis, and be shown to actually have "pure" honey, maybe we should all protect ourselves.

One person has already suggested that he tells ever customer that his honey is un-pure. I'm not going to assume anything. But I have some serious doubts. What about that one customer that bought while nobody was looking? Did anyone tell him of the dangers and potential risk of contaminates in honey? If you do tell every customer, don't you think that having it in writing would be better protection?

So lets make a move to change our labels on the front to "Unverified Honey". That way, unless you have testing done, the consumer should never assume a pure product, to which they are not buying anyways. Beekeepers are calling out other beekeepers in this area of full disclosure, so why not just nip this in the butt now and get it done? Honey is not pure and we should not be fooling the consumers anymore.  

On the back, how about this.....

This honey is unverified, and should never be assumed to be without contaminates. Bees collect from a wide source of flowers and sugar sources to include other hives (through robbing) maintained by beekeepers who may use applied chemicals. This product may or may not be contaminated with but not limited to: pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc. Never assume honey to be pure and safe. Those Pregnant, with sensitivity to certain chemicals, and those on certain medications, should consult a doctor and medical advice prior to consuming this product. No guarantees written or assumed should be made.

So what did I miss? How can this be cleaned up and made more official?

Time we looked in the mirror and faced facts. No beekeeper knows what their bees worked, what chemical are in the honey, and at what levels. So lets stop fooling ourselves. Unless we submit samples and pay for the analysis, nobody can say they have "pure" honey. And lets cut the crap on ever-changing terms to fool the public like "Treatment Free". Everyone's honey is contaminated.. Period!

 :lau:

[gardeningfireman]

Do I note a tiny tad of sarcasm here? :-D Political Correctness at its finest! You need to add to the label that honey is technically bee vomit!! :-D

[mtnmanky]

"Caution!  Breathing may be hazardous to your health." 

Just proves the old saying that Common sense isn't....common.

 :deadhorse:

and I'm a lawyer!   ;)

[iddee]

If the bees made it, it is pure honey. Different honeys are made using different recipes. If bees put arsenic in it, it is still pure honey. Who are we to say their recipe is wrong?

[AllenF]

Bees can poison the honey with Rhododendron.  There is no telling where they get there water.  I think there is a given amount of risk in all food we eat.   Can you call the catfish I eat pure?  What did he eat or the mercury what is from the coal plant upstream.   This can be applied to all pure and natural food we eat. 

[bigbearomaha]

see, when  I hear terms like "pure honey" I first thought about honey that has no other ingredients but the honey from the comb.  As opposed to honey mixed with corn syrup or honey with artificial flavorings added to it.

in terms of unpleasant things being brought into the picture like pesticides on the pollen and unsavory flowers, we have little to no control over where the bees collect from or visit.

I'll just keep on eating honey and be blissfully ignorant.   I may die sooner, but I will die happy.  That's all that matters to me.

 :-D

Big Bear

[caticind]

Let it go already.  No judge in their right mind would take this case.   ;)

For the purpose of testing and regulation, "pure" honey is honey made from floral sources of nectar, rather than being fermented and condensed from HFCS, a man-made substance.  And the regulators are gracious enough to admit that they have a 5% margin of error in determining that chemically.  Below certain tolerances, they don't care about other possible contaminants.

I'm pretty sure both of you agree that feeding barrels of HFCS while supers are on leads to adulterated "not-pure" honey and is bad beekeeping besides.  And it seems reasonable that if bees are fed HFCS in the fall, and not fed in the spring or during flow, they will eat enough of the HFCS stores that it will not turn up in the honey at a level relevant to the people doing the testing.

I have my own opinion re: advertising chemical-free hives and honey, but there is no legal or even industry-wide definition of "chemical-free" for beekeeping so long as the honey meets the testing standards above.  Only BjornBee and deknow's customers can determine whether they believe what they are told and whether they like the product they are getting.  Hopefully customers who claim to want "chemical-free" honey will do some research online, perhaps here.  And if they do, now they have this thread (and all the others on the SAME TOPIC  :roll:) to use as evidence when they weigh claims about that honey.

[bigbearomaha]

And it seems reasonable that if bees are fed HCFS in the fall, and not fed in the spring or during flow, they will eat enough of the HCFS stores that it will not turn up in the honey at a level relevant to the people doing the testing.

similar has been said about the fall honey having the wonderful scent of old sweatsox and other such described odors.

If one takes the honey they want from the hive before the fall flow and doesn't pull honey in the spring, that fall honey will likely be consumed before any honey is pulled in summer or early fall.

Big Bear

[MagicValley]

KISS  =  "100% Honey"

[L Daxon]

When I wasn't producing my own honey, I always looked for "raw, unprocessed honey," rather than "pure."
It seems to me, if the bee gets the sweetstuff, whether it is nectar from flowers, sugar, HFCS, or some combination, and puts it in her little tummy, adds bee enzymes, then vomits it into the cells, it is honey.  Isn't it what the bee does to the nectar, sugar, etc. that really makes it "honey."  As to the pure part, i.e. no chemicals, etc.,  no one can ever guarantee purity unless you follow every bee on each outing to make sure they only go to unchemically treated flowers and back. Not happening.

[caticind]

Right, there's a difference between "honey" from the bee perspective (anything with mostly the right balance of sugars, fermented and concentrated and stashed in a cell for the winter) and "honey" from the FDA's perspective, which comes from trying to stop people from selling cheap substitutes that might be either toxic (melamine as infant formula) or misleadingly advertised (excessively HFCS-diluted honey, rice syrup honey, etc), and "honey" from the beekeeper's perspective.

Most customers don't even know how bees make honey.  They don't realize how bees are kept or what beekeepers do to keep them.  They don't expect honey to contain corn or cane sugars even in trace quantity.  They don't do enough research to realize that those substances are even involved, let alone understand WHY they would be used.  They don't think that the chemicals they apply to their crops or lawns get picked up and end up in honey.  And they don't realize that they consume those chemicals all the time on other products in small quantities (albeit without much harm).

I sometimes think they imagine the bee dancing like crazy on the flower and then wringing out its little sweatband and that's honey!   :bee: :rainbowflower:

Look, BjornBee is not a dumper selling honey-flavored HFCS.  And deknow is not a my-bees-are-cleaner-than-yours purist.  They are both successful beekeepers who differ in their methodology and their approach to dealing with the gaps in their customers' understanding.  But they are definitely not talking to each other, either.  Those straw men are much better conversationalists, it seems.

[gundalf]

I like "raw or unprocessed honey, as pure as our bees can make it..."

[CAHighwind]

This whole health nut garbage about "Chemicals" always gets my goat.  Do they not understand that EVERYTHING is made out of chemicals?  H2O, water, is a chemical.  O2, that you need to breathe, is a CHEMICAL.  The cellulose your coffee table is made out of is a CHEMICAL.  Nothing other than an ABSOLUTE VACUUM is "Chemical Free".  Even the purest of pure honey is therefore, by definition, A CHEMICAL.  Honestly, if we're all such big morons that we need THAT level of hand holding to go on living day to day then maybe nature needs to wipe the slate of those that incapable of surviving without someone who "knows better" policing everything for them.

[Livefreeordie]

Another vote for " Raw Honey "....

[Livefreeordie]

This whole health nut garbage about "Chemicals" always gets my goat.  Do they not understand that EVERYTHING is made out of chemicals?  H2O, water, is a chemical.  O2, that you need to breathe, is a CHEMICAL.  The cellulose your coffee table is made out of is a CHEMICAL.  Nothing other than an ABSOLUTE VACUUM is "Chemical Free".  Even the purest of pure honey is therefore, by definition, a CHEMICAL.  Honestly, if we're all such big morons that we need THAT level of hand holding to go on living day to day then maybe nature needs to wipe the slate of those that incapable of surviving without someone who "knows better" policing everything for them.

I do like the way you think...and here I thought Colorado was.....oh never mind, good words... ;)

[bigbearomaha]

perhaps it's not worded specifically enough but people are cautious of synthetic chemicals, that is , the chemicals we people come up with in our infamous 'science' experiments' to do those things which attempt to duplicate naturally occurring things or, do things that do not occur naturally.

Big Bear

[buzzbee]

Unadulterated might be a good choice. Too bad the litigious society brings out these kind of conversations.

[doak]

I think the term (pure) is meant to mean, no additives, or as said, Unadulterated.

Or you may want to try another Hobby. :)doak

[deknow]

i'm a bit busy to address all of this, however, quickly, i'd like to point out:

1.  in "the other thread", i pointed out that even if one considers cane sugar "not a chemical" (being essentially a product of nature....not a def i'd use, but it is a line that is often drawn), one cannot consider HFCS anything but a chemical...it is synthesized in a lab.  bjorn agreed that HFCS is a chemical.

2.  i have (for years) been intentionally been using the term "treatment free".....being the best short description that i can come up with that accurately conveys what i mean......no "treatments" (substances, drugs, artifical feeds, essential oils, organic acids, fgmo, antibiotics, probiotics, synthetic chemcials, aroma therapy, etc, so forth and so on...) are used on the bees and/or in the hive.  perhaps "input free" or "zero input" would be more accurate?  i don't use the terms chemical free, organic, natural, etc.

3.  the person claiming chemical free bees and chemical free honey is bjorn.  it's probably not fair of me to point out the things that are on his website considering all the contortions i had to do to find his site (i clicked the link at the bottom of each of his posts...just above "marking queens is gay" or somesuch nonsense).

4.  in our book, we note that pcbs have been found in every honeybee sample taken in the last 20 years...in fact, also on page 116:

Even those of us who don't use pesticides inside our beehives have to face the fact that they are ubiquitous in the environment, and all kinds of pollutants are present in even the most pristine beehives

is that clear enough?

...this is the same book that is on the table at every market we do (7 a week) right next to honey from actual untreated bees.  anyone that knows us at all won't have any trouble believing that ramona and i discuss these issues with hundreds of people every week.

we say "treatment free" and mean that no treatments are used.  others say "...we do not use chemicals in our hives" and feed HFCS.  i have no idea what "non-chemical treatments" may or may not be used....i expect that neither customers or readers of beemaster will find out any time soon.  contamination of honey is only one of the concerns associated with treatments....just like lack of nutrients is only one of the concerns associated with artificial feeds.

deknow

[BjornBee]

Look, BjornBee is not a dumper selling honey-flavored HFCS.  And deknow is not a my-bees-are-cleaner-than-yours purist.  They are both successful beekeepers who differ in their methodology and their approach to dealing with the gaps in their customers' understanding.  But they are definitely not talking to each other, either.  Those straw men are much better conversationalists, it seems.

That made me laugh.  ;)