Bee honey has been learned to counterfeit for a long time. Previously, ordinary sugar, water, dyes and flavors were used to counterfeit this product. This list has grown over time. Now, invert syrup, molasses, various impurities and chemicals are used to make a fake.

Now control over the quality of honey is a state responsibility. But some people prefer to buy not in stores, but from individuals. Of course, this honey is not quality tested. In order to independently distinguish natural honey from fake honey, you should know some tricks.

How to distinguish natural honey from artificial honey?

Every buyer should learn to recognize real honey from counterfeit honey. A natural bee product must meet certain mandatory points:

1. Persistent aroma, which contains notes of wax, nectar, pollen, sweetness.
2. Natural honey can be stored for a long time without changing its consistency.
3. A real bee elixir has a viscous, rather thick consistency, regardless of the time of its collection. When rubbed with your fingers, it is quickly and easily absorbed into the skin. In this case, no lumps should remain.

How to distinguish fake honey from natural honey?

First, you need to give the product a visual assessment. A clear sign that explains how to distinguish honey from a fake is a liquid consistency, which indicates that most likely the product was diluted with syrup. Also about dilution with sugar syrup is indicated by the presence in honey a large number white color.

Fake honey can reveal the following indicators:

• heterogeneous consistency;
• uneven color;
• the presence of sediment at the bottom of the container.

How else can you tell the difference between natural honey?

For this, there are special methods of determination, the effectiveness of which has been tested by time.

One of the most affordable methods is the napkin method. For its implementation, it is necessary to drip honey on the paper surface. If the honey is natural, then a wet spot should not form next to the drop. This is a clear indicator of quality. A real bee elixir lays down in the form of a slide, after which it gradually spreads.

A quality product should stretch from the spoon for a long time, forming a thin long thread.

Natural honey can be wrapped around a spoon. With such actions, it will not immediately drain.

Counterfeit or "linden" honey has at least one of the following features:

1. Sour smell or no aroma at all.
2. Does not cause a slight burning sensation in the throat.
3. Peels off.
4. Foams.
5. Has a rough texture.

How to distinguish fake fireweed honey?

Fireweed honey is obtained by collecting nectar from a fireweed flower by bees. Often, such a product has a white color and a specific smell. However, it is very different from ordinary honey and does not apply to all of the above signs of a poor-quality product.

It is possible to identify fake fireweed honey by the presence of dyes and chemical additives. To determine, you need to take two hundred grams of honey and a little more than a glass of water. Mix thoroughly and add a few drops of ammonia. The subsequent formation of sediment indicates that the honey is falsified.

When buying any kind of honey, you should pay attention to the price. If its market value is clearly underestimated, then most likely the product is of poor quality. Sugar syrup tinted with tea leaves and mixed with a small amount of real honey is often offered for sale at a low price.

Greetings to everyone in my electronic beekeeper diary!

Yesterday a friend called me and asked for advice on honey. He went to visit relatives in Kazakhstan and wanted to bring local honey to his grandmother.

Walking through the counters, I bought a couple of test jars from different manufacturers, in the end one honey turned out to be sour, the other started 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 you could take a printout with you. Look for helpful tips below.

A Few Tricks When Choosing Honey

• Liquid honey is available only for a month after honey collection, which lasts from late July to late September. By the end of October, all of the harvested honey begins to crystallize and thicken, except for the acacia and heather honey. Therefore, if you are offered liquid honey on the market in winter, most likely it was 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 with a long thread, and if it breaks, a slide will form on the surface of the honey, which will slowly spread. Fake honey is quickly poured from a spoon or scattered in a spray. You can wind honey on a spoon - if it lies in even folds, then this is not a fake in front of you.
• Be sure to smell honey and taste it - it should have a fragrant smell and characteristic taste that cannot be compared with anything else. The lack of aroma indicates the artificial origin of the 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, therefore white honey does not mean sugar, and dark brown does not mean the presence of molasses or sugar syrup in honey. Melilot, 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 check the quality of honey in more detail 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 curious experts set up a real chemical laboratory in the kitchen, but this can be avoided if you take honey from a trusted beekeeper friend who keeps bees in an ecologically clean area.

Source: www.edimdoma.ru

How to choose natural honey on the market

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

So, instead of a truly natural product, some beekeepers-businessmen 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 with. Honey that is two or three years old is often sold, which has been overheated and poured many times. No one, of course, recognizes its antiquity.

And the most severe fakes are herbal 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 fraudsters succeed. In order not to be deceived and choose real high-quality honey, you should know the main signs of a natural product.

How to tell good honey from fakes

1. Taste.

   It should be somewhat astringent and cloying. How to choose natural honey to taste? It has a pronounced specificity. Linden is slightly softer, 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, which is typical for a natural product.

2. By smell.

   Likewise with the smell. How to choose quality honey on the market? Smell it! Any natural product has a specific aroma, even when thickened. And sugar syrups hardly smell.

3. Overall consistency.

   It is easiest to identify by rubbing a drop of sweet treat between your fingers. How to choose natural honey? It will rub easily evenly and be absorbed into the skin. The fake most often forms clots and lumps easily felt by the fingers.

   Very often, when choosing honey on the market or from hand, it is possible to evaluate its consistency by dipping a stick or spoon into it. When poured from a spoon, the "correct" honey will form a thin thread, and on the surface of the bulk it will accumulate in the form of a pagoda, which will gradually spread out. A fake, as a rule, drips from a spoon and immediately falls into the main volume.

4. By color.
   How to choose the right honey by color? This feature is the most difficult. So, some varieties of honey can very easily be confused with "sugar" because of their lightness. However, honey made from sugar tends to appear overly white. In addition, natural honey is always quite homogeneous and transparent, while in fakes, turbidity and a slight sediment at the bottom are usually clearly visible.

But even knowing how to choose natural honey based on 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 over them. For example, there are good methods for assessing the presence of certain additives in honey.

What is added to honey

• Starch.
  It is calculated by the usual school experience: a few drops of iodine are dripped into the jar. If there is starch, the stains on the honey surface will turn blue.
• Sugar.
  It is even easier to check: a piece of bread is dipped into the honey and lasts ten minutes. After that, it is removed. If the bread has hardened, then the honey is good. If it is soft, then there is a lot of sugar syrup in it.
• Water.
  Water will definitely show itself if you drop honey on a sheet of paper. A good product will remain a drop on paper, and diluted with water will begin to form liquid stains or even leak.
• A piece of chalk.
  It is added to the composition of the product most often to give the impression of thickness and density. To find it, you need to drop vinegar essence into a spoon with honey. His hiss means bad.

In order to check whether you have chosen high-quality honey, you can simply poke into it with a red-hot wire. If, after taking it out, anything remains on it, this is a fake. 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. On the good, after a few months it begins to crystallize. And if in the middle of winter they sell you a product that is pure as a baby's tear and as fluid as a mountain stream, you should know that something is wrong with it.

Source: sostavproduktov.ru

Distinctive properties and signs of natural honey

Consistency is the first sign of real honey. First of all, it should be homogeneous, at the bottom of the jar with honey there should be no sediment or any stratification. Also, depending on the season, 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 thick. If this does not happen, then the honey is fake.

Attention!

The 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 down (usually beekeepers say “dissolved”) to give it a marketable appearance, or it was obtained as a result of bees feeding with sugar. By the way, in the winter on store shelves, usually packaged honey is just a liquid consistency, which should be alarming.

• Pay attention to the fluidity of the honey (this method is suitable for freshly pumped liquid honey). The quality of young honey can be defined as follows: dip a spoon into a bottle of honey, scoop it up and lift it up. Real honey lasts a long, long time, flows down in an even trickle, does not break into drops, falls on a plate like a slide, and then smoothly spreads over its surface. The last drop of the dripping honey bounces and pulls back to the spoon.

  If the spoon is rotated around its axis, then honey should "wrap" around it like a ribbon. Unripe honey usually drains off immediately, no matter how quickly you rotate the spoon.

  Try rubbing a little honey between your fingers as well. The real one is completely absorbed, the fake one forms a lump that can be rolled.

• Taste. Real honey, in addition to being simply sweet, should also taste pleasantly bitter, cause a slight sore throat, it should have a tart taste. Hold a little honey in your mouth and swallow - the right honey will "pull" your throat.
• Smell and aroma. Real honey smells like flowers, the smell is unobtrusive, natural. The artificial has two extremes: the smell may be completely absent or be harsh, unnatural, caramelized.
• The color of honey depends on the honey plants from which the nectar was collected. For example, flower honey comes in light shades, buckwheat honey is brown, linden honey is amber. White color may indicate that the bees were fed sugar syrup. In this case, they ferment the sugar and process it like regular nectar from the fields. As a result, ordinary honey is obtained, which is difficult to determine even in laboratory conditions.

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

Often, unscrupulous sellers offer buyers liquid honey of a dark color (supposedly buckwheat) in spring or early summer. This color can be obtained if you melt 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 cannot be added to hot drinks (tea, milk, cocoa). For cosmetic purposes (during the preparation of homemade masks, scrubs), it is advisable to slightly heat the 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" evokes an involuntary smile. No, theoretically honey can be harvested in May, but no beekeeper in his right mind would take food in the form of sweet flower nectar and pollen from the future brood, which they need for growth and development. Pumping honey in early spring leads to lethargy, weakness of future toilers-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 beekeeping products creates fertile ground for fraudsters. Currently, flour, chalk, sawdust, starch, sucrose, molasses and other fillers are used to create counterfeit products.

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

Methods for detecting 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, while 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 identify the presence of sugar or starch syrup in honey. Prepare a 10% honey solution. Add a little medical alcohol to 1/2 part of the solution, if it turns white - starch syrup was mixed into the honey. To detect signs of sugar molasses, you need to add to the remaining half of silver nitrate or lapis. If a white precipitate has fallen out, it means that it is present there.
• The presence of impurities can also be determined using blotting paper (blotting paper). We put a small amount of honey on the paper, leave it for 3-5 minutes. If during this time the paper on the reverse side is not soaked, then this indicates the high quality of honey.
• You can find out if honey is diluted with sugar syrup if you immerse a piece of bread in honey for 10 minutes. We look: if the piece is solid, then the honey is normal, and if it has crawled or softened, 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 is drawn over it with a chemical pencil, or the pencil is dipped into the honey itself.

It is assumed 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, researcher V.G. Chudakov in 1972 tested 36 samples of honey of different quality, including 13 falsified, and believes that this folk method for determining the naturalness of honey and assessing its quality is absolutely wrong.

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

Again, V.G. Chudakov conducted laboratory studies of this sample, which led to the conclusion that the sample actually allows to determine almost 100% of falsified honey, but besides, a part of natural honey also falls into the category of falsified.

Advice!

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

If the honey is too white it should raise suspicion, is it sugar? If the color is dark brown, is it not honeydew? If its aroma is dulled, 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 wrapped around a spoon like a ribbon, with sweet threads, interrupted at a certain moment.

Liquid honey should raise suspicion. Most likely it is unripe honey. It will not be stored, fermented, as it contains a lot of water. Such honey will not "wrap" around the spoon, but will simply drain from it. If you buy honey in winter, it should not be liquid, and if so, then it is most likely warmed up or diluted.

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

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

Beware of buying honey from apiaries located along highways with heavy traffic. Such honey may contain an increased amount of lead compounds and other substances that get on the flowers with the exhaust gases of cars. 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 identify 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, the 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 a solution of Lugol (or tincture of iodine). If the honey contains flour or starch, then the solution will turn blue.

An admixture of starch syrup (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 the honey contains starch syrup, then the solution will take on a milky color. After settling this solution, a transparent semi-liquid sticky mass (dextrin) will settle. If there is no impurity, the solution will remain clear.

It is possible to 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, this indicates the presence of an impurity. If there is no sediment, then the honey is clean.

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

To detect an impurity of inverted sugar (grated honey), there is a rather complicated way: 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 (specific gravity 1.125 g).

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

The increased percentage of sucrose in honey, which can be established in laboratory conditions, indicates its poor quality: in natural flower honey, sucrose is no more than 5%, no 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 honeycombs, insipid inexpressive taste, liquid consistency (if fresh), with prolonged storage it becomes thick, sticky, sticky.

"Sugar" honey (bees were fed or fed with sugar), like all unnatural honeys, is characterized by the absence of vitamins, organic acids, protein and aromatic substances, and mineral salts. In sugar honey, silicon is the main element, and there are practically no other salts, there are only traces of them. In natural honey, the opposite is true.

If the honey does not crystallize, then we can assume 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, precipitating, then this indicates the presence of an admixture of honeydew honey.

How can you tell 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 fooled, 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 gone bad.

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

Attention!

Careless beekeepers do not take out bees to collect nectar, but simply feed them with sugar. Sugar honey is unnatural. 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%) is completely bound in a true saturated solution. Honey with sugar syrup has a high humidity, this can be checked in the following way: dip a piece of bread in honey, and after 8-10 minutes take it out. In high-quality honey, the bread will harden. If, on the contrary, it has softened or creeped altogether, then in front of you is nothing more than sugar syrup.

Honey sellers' tricks for gullible buyers

First, cover your ears and don't listen to what they tell you. Check everything yourself. Of course, one honest salesman can fall into a bunch of liars, but how do you know that the one who stands in front of you is honest? Taste honey not only from the top, but from the bottom of the jar as well. Do not hesitate to reach into the jar with a spoon and do not listen to sellers who start shouting: "Do not spoil the product!"

Unheated honey - both fresh transparent and sugared - is an effective antiseptic, and a clean spoon in a jar cannot spoil it. It is another matter if there was no honey at the bottom, or this honey was previously heated, which led to the loss of its antiseptic and all other healing properties.

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

Probably everyone has heard about the benefits of bee products. Such natural gifts are able to heal the body, prevent a variety of diseases and pathologies, and even heal some of them. Medicines based on bee products can be purchased at any pharmacy or prepared at home. And the most popular of them is considered to be honey - a delicious and very healthy delicacy. But, unfortunately, today it is very difficult to find really high-quality honey. Therefore, the topic of our conversation today will be fakes of honey and how to identify them, let's talk about how to distinguish fake honey from the real one.

Fake honey can be purchased anywhere - both from dealers and producers. At the same time, the average consumer will not even be able to distinguish them from each other. Let's try to understand not only the differences between real honey, but also the variety of existing fakes.

What are the fakes?

The most "natural" counterfeit is honey with various additives, for example, with essential oil. This trick helps unscrupulous sellers pass off honey as a different variety.

Also, for the manufacture of fakes, starch, molasses or sucrose and other components can be used. In some cases, honey is counterfeited so professionally that it is simply impossible to find out on our own. This is how unscrupulous beekeepers feed the bees with sugar syrup, which increases the productivity of insects. In this case, only a laboratory helps to determine a fake.

Therefore, in order to get one hundred percent quality honey, it is better to buy it from beekeepers whom you trust.

How to distinguish natural honey from fake by eye?

Sometimes a too low cost indicates a fake. If you suddenly have the opportunity to buy cheaper honey, think about the reasons for the reduced price. Having saved, you can buy only a part of real honey, mixed with sugar syrup and tinted with tea.

The liquid consistency of honey can also indicate a fake. This natural sweetness remains liquid for only a few months, then it gradually thickens. So in winter it is almost impossible to find liquid honey if you come across just this - perhaps it is diluted or warmed up.

Also, the presence of too much white in such a product may indicate a fake. This phenomenon may indicate that the sweetness has been diluted with sugar syrup.

Insufficient quality honey may look too dark and may have a caramel flavor. A similar phenomenon indicates that the sweetness has been heated or straightened. So, for example, dark buckwheat honey can be reheated and sold as fresh.

Please note that the crystallization of honey is a natural phenomenon. In the event that such a sweetness is stored for a long time, it may well be that potato syrup was mixed into it or was heat treated in the past. Usually such a feature becomes apparent after the purchase, but having found it, you can refrain from purchasing from this beekeeper in the future. It should be noted that in the fall you can still buy liquid honey - chestnut and acacia honey.

Also, fermentation, layering of honey or the acquisition of an ugly forked texture by it may also indicate a fake.

You should not be guided by the presence of bee corpses, pieces of wax or grass in honey. They do not indicate the naturalness of the product, because the seller can add them to the product on purpose.

How to identify fake honey at home?

Every year, manufacturers of "fake" beekeeping products are inventing more and more new methods of disguising fakes. However, there are several methods that can help you figure out how high-quality honey is in front of you.

Mechanical research

Try rubbing honey between your fingers. A high-quality delicacy sticks well, it forms a sticky film. If you get a fake in your hands, you may have a feeling of excessive moisture. Also, the counterfeit can form a lump that can be rolled in the fingers.

If dropped from a whisk or spoon, honey will not splatter. Just put a small drop on a napkin - it should not spread. In this case, honey will stretch from a spoon with a thin thread, and the last drop will spring and pull up.
A high-quality honey mixture will lay down like a slide, and only then - spread.

Simple method with iodine and water (or vinegar)

Pour some honey into a glass, pour some water there. Mix well. If honey contains additives, they will settle to the bottom.
Put a couple of drops of iodine into a glass and stir. If the mixture suddenly turns blue, then starch is present in the honey.
You can also drip some vinegar into the solution. If suddenly something hisses, then there is chalk in the honey.

A Few More Chemical Experiments

Prepare a five to ten percent solution of honey and combine it with rubbing alcohol in a 4: 1 ratio. When a white precipitate appears, conclusions can be drawn about the presence of sugar molasses in the solution.

Also, methyl alcohol can be added to the honey solution - when a yellowish-white precipitate appears, conclusions can be drawn about the presence of impurities in honey.

Spoon method

This is a simple test method that can be done in a fairly warm room - with a temperature of at least twenty degrees. Take an ordinary spoon and wrap honey around it, making quick rotational movements. A completely natural product will behave like caramel - it will wrap around the spoon and will not drip. If you have a fake in your hands, it may start flowing from the spoon, bubbles or blotches of some other color may appear in it.

Paper method

To determine the naturalness of honey using paper - put a small amount of honey on a piece of paper and wait for five minutes. In the event that a wet spot does not appear on the back of the leaf, the honey is really high quality and has not been diluted. It is quite possible to resort to this method of checking at the fair - take some honey on a stick and put it on a sheet of paper.

Fire method

This method of determining the quality of honey will help to find out the authenticity of crystallized honey. Light a small piece and watch carefully how it burns. In the event that you have one hundred percent high-quality honey in your hands, it will simply melt. If you come across a fake, it will crackle and hiss (this is how other extraneous components will appear).

Bread method

This method allows you to find out if there is sugar syrup in the honey. Just take a small slice of bread and dip it in honey. Wait for ten to fifteen minutes, then take out and inspect a piece of bread. A really high-quality product will not soften the bread, and if it contains sugar syrup, the bread will get wet.

Advice from beekeepers

When choosing honey, give preference to its thicker varieties. If the product has a transparent consistency, it may well be that it was warmed up by the seller.

What types of honey do not exist?

Many beekeepers, as well as second-hand dealers, invent honey varieties or distribute those that are especially rare. Consider particularly troubling options.

Royal jelly honey. It is very difficult to obtain such honey and it is almost impossible to obtain such a volume that it would be possible to sell it. One queen cell contains no more than two hundred grams of milk, and special efforts are needed to create a dessert. But sellers of sweets with such a loud name have a reason to put a particularly high price on it.

It is impossible to purchase honey from rose hips, corn, hazel or poppy. Flowers of these plants do not produce nectar. It is also impossible to get chamomile honey.

Honey from strawberries, blackberries or blueberries should also alert you. To get natural honey using nectar from these shrubs, you need to spend a lot of time and effort, because they give very little nectar. But unscrupulous beekeepers can feed the bees with berry juice, and insects process it like nectar. The resulting honey is not as healthy as natural honey, but sellers do not tell about it.

Also, do not buy honey from milk thistle, pumpkin and silvery sucker. Mention of the so-called "wild" honey or the prevalence of "flower" varieties of honey from the seller may also be alarming.

Some more tips from the beekeeper

Be sure to taste honey before buying, and also smell it. Feel free to ask clarifying questions - about when the honey was collected and about where the apiary is. Beekeeping products cost a lot of money, so you have the right to be fully informed.

Quality honey has a pleasant floral scent and a sweet and pleasant taste. There are varieties of beekeeping products that are characterized by a rather original taste. If you are going to buy just such, find out before that what taste and aroma they should have.

But more often than not, honey smells like a honeycomb of beehives - wax, nectar and pollen, as well as sweetness and, of course, honey. A low-quality product can have a particularly pungent smell, sometimes there is no aroma at all.

When swallowed, honey can tingle the throat a little, and also give a slight bitterness.

Be sure to ask about the weight of the purchased honey - one liter of a quality beekeeping product weighs 1.4 kg on average.

Store the purchased treat in a dark or opaque glass or ceramic container. Close the vessel tightly with a lid, because honey can absorb foreign odors. It is best to keep the storage temperature between five and twenty degrees. In no case should you store honey in the sun.

Honey is a real treasure for the body. It contains beneficial minerals and vitamins that have a positive effect on health. In addition, it is also a very tasty delicacy. The scope of application is very diverse. It can be used for the preparation of cosmetics, as a food additive, or for the treatment and prevention of all kinds of diseases. Every person needs to know how to determine the naturalness and quality of honey in order to avoid buying an artificial substitute for the product.

Honey: what is it like?

There are several main types of honey:

• May. This is the name of the product obtained after the first pitching. It is worth noting that the name has nothing to do with the characteristics of the honey itself, but is purely philistine in nature.
• Honeydew honey. It is a product that bees make from the sweet secretions of certain insects, not flowers. Honeydew of vegetable origin can also be obtained from the honeydew of trees such as maple, linden, spruce, fir, hazel.
• Monofloral honey. This product got its name because bees collect it from the flowers of one plant species.
• Polyfloral honey. A product that bees produce from nectar collected from several plant species.

We figured out the types of product, it remains only to understand how to determine the quality of honey at home.

How to choose natural honey on the market?

Today on the market it is very often possible to encounter the fact that sellers are trying to sell an unnatural product to the consumer. Such honey may have been pumped out earlier than expected, diluted with water or starch. Sometimes sellers even melt it specifically to make the product look more presentable. All these actions lead to the fact that honey loses its beneficial properties. And its heating leads to the formation of harmful substances in the composition. How to check honey? Is it a real product or not? This is a pressing issue today. Knowing just a few simple rules, you can easily distinguish an artificial product from a natural one.

What you need to know:

• To avoid buying melted honey, never look for a liquid consistency in late fall or winter. Even the latest varieties crystallize by this period. If you went to the market in January and you see the seller demonstrating that honey flows smoothly from a spoon, never buy such a product, because it is most likely melted. Unfortunately, sellers do this very often in order to generate more profit.
• Have you noticed that honey is sometimes sold with a foam on the surface? This does not mean that it is fresh. Such a product was either pumped out ahead of time, or simply diluted with water, and this already significantly reduces the percentage of nutrients in the composition.
• When purchasing honey in combs, you also need to be very careful. The main thing is to pay attention to the fact that the cells are tightly sealed. Beekeepers do this in order to preserve the beneficial properties of the product.

How to determine the quality of honey by external signs?

Before you can determine the quality of honey at home, you first need to buy it. At the bazaar, it is not always possible to figure out whether a natural product is in front of you or not. But there are several signs you can pay attention to to buy good honey.

What to look for?

• Color. The first thing a person is interested in looking at the counter is the color of the honey. Of course, depending on the varieties, the shades may differ. However, there is a general rule. If the honey is fresh, then there will be no sediment in it. If the product is cloudy, it means that there are some impurities in the composition. If you notice a few dark spots, it means that the honey has been heated, perhaps even more than once.
• The consistency of natural honey should be slightly viscous. If you twisted the jar in your hands and noticed that the product pours too quickly, then this means that it is either diluted or melted.
• Weight and taste. It is known that a jar with one liter of honey weighs about 1.5 kilograms. If you notice that it is much lighter, then the product has been diluted with water. Now for the taste. Honey itself is sweet, but some vendors add extra sugar to it. Try the product on the tip of your tongue. If it's sugary, then the seller sweetened it.

Checking honey at home by dissolving the product in water

If you are interested in how to determine the quality of honey at home, then one of the most effective ways is to dissolve it in water.

Take a small mug of boiling water, add some honey there. After it dissolves, the liquid will become slightly cloudy. It is important to know that this should not leave sediment. If it appears, then there are impurities in the product. If, after adding honey, the water remains clear, then sugar syrup has been added to it.

A sheet of paper is an easy way to check the quality of honey

In order to conduct this test, it is better to take low-grade paper, rather than heavy white. Even a thin tissue or regular toilet paper will do. Drop a small amount of honey on it and watch carefully how it behaves. If honey starts to spread or seep through the napkin, then the product is unnatural or diluted. A good product will be one after which no wet spots will remain on the napkin around a drop.

This method is great for determining the quality of honey at home. The test is carried out very quickly and gives you a clear answer whether the product is natural or not.

Homemade quality test using vinegar

Vinegar is in the arsenal of every housewife. Are you wondering how to determine the quality of honey at home using it? In fact, everything is very simple. Take some honey and dilute it with water, then add vinegar there. Now let's see what happens next. If the consistency begins to bubble or foam has formed, then this is a very bad sign, which clearly makes it clear that there is chalk in the composition.

Iodine test

Now we check the quality of honey at home using iodine. This test will help to find out if the product contains additional impurities, namely flour or starch.

Take a small amount of honey and dilute it in water. The water should not be hot, let it be boiled at room temperature. Mix everything well so that the honey dissolves. Then add a few drops of iodine. If the solution turns blue, it means that the product contains flour or starch.

Wire method

Do you know how to check honey? Whether the product is real or not, ordinary copper wire will help you determine. This test involves performing two simple steps:

• Heat the wire until it turns red.
• We put it in a container with honey and keep it there for literally 10-15 seconds.

After you take out the wire, see if it remains clean. If so, then this is a truly natural product. However, if a sticky mass remains on the surface, then there are impurities in the honey or it has been diluted with water.

Bread dough

Checking the quality of honey at home does not take much time, but you can be completely sure which product you are using: natural or not.

One of the most effective tests is the bread quality test. Pour enough honey into a bowl to cover a slice of white bread, then lower the bread itself. Leave it there for about 10 minutes. If you see that the bread has softened or began to creep, it means that there is sugar syrup in the honey, and this already indicates that the product is unnatural. Real, pure honey makes the bread harden.

Now you know how to test honey at home. All possible methods that give a clear result have been presented above. Never buy a large jar on the market at once, take a little for a sample first. Run simple tests at home, and you will see what you bought: a fake or a natural product. If it turns out that honey is good, then you can already buy large quantity, but you will be sure of its authenticity.

Absolutely everyone should know how to determine the quality of honey at home. Don't be fooled, always check the product for quality and impurities. And the above methods will help you make the right choice.

On August 14, Russia celebrated the First Savior, which was also called Honey, - by this day, the honeycombs should be filled, and the beekeepers begin to get the contents. In the temples, from that day it was allowed to eat it - they made honey cakes, pancakes with poppy seeds and honey, gingerbreads and other pastries. Honey fairs in Russia begin in May, when beekeepers start to extract the first honey. On beautiful counters, lined with various jars, you can find honey for any, the most demanding taste. True, sometimes buyers are faced with the fact that for a lot of money they bought not a "natural product", but it, and they can only hope that this honey is not dangerous to health.

For an unscrupulous manufacturer, the most important thing is to increase the mass of the product or even mix a certain substance that should resemble honey as much as possible. Most often, sugar syrup is added to honey. Thus, it is possible to increase the mass and make the unripe honey sweet. In addition, starch, beet syrup, starch syrup, invert sugar, sucrose can be added - as far as imagination suffices. We have collected tips on how to distinguish real honey from fake honey in everyday life.

1) Check for ductility Natural honey is by no means watery. It should be stringy. Heat the honey to about 20 degrees, stirring with a spoon. Then take out the spoon and start rotating it - if it is of normal consistency, then it should curl onto the spoon, and not drain. Then watch how the honey flows back into the container - it should slowly slide down, forming bubbles on the surface.

2) Newspaper check Put some honey on a piece of paper (a piece of newspaper or toilet paper) - the paper should remain dry. If the honey has spread and formed a wet trail, then there is water in it.

3) Check on bread Another test for the presence of water, which should not be there, can be done with a piece of bread. It just needs to be dipped in honey for 10 minutes and then removed. In natural high-quality honey, the bread should harden, in fake honey it will soften.

4) Check with iodine In order to detect impurities in honey, you will need to conduct a simple experiment. Dilute some honey with water and add a drop of iodine to it. If the liquid turns blue, then it contains starch or flour.

5) Check with vinegar essence To do this, you also need to make a honey solution with warm water. If, when adding vinegar essence, the solution hiss, but it contains chalk.

6) Checking with a lap pencil For the next experiment, you will need a lapis pencil, which can be bought at a pharmacy for less than 150 rubles. Make a 5-10% solution of honey and dip your pencil into it. If a white precipitate forms, sugar has been added to the honey.

7) Check with a chemical pencil To determine if the honey contains extraneous liquids, take a chemical pencil and a piece of paper with you to the fair. Spread a small amount of honey on the paper and try to write something through the honey with a pencil. If after a few seconds you see an inscription or stains of blue-violet color, it means that water or syrup was added to the treat.

8) Wire check Take a stainless steel wire, heat it over a fire (you can use a regular lighter) and immerse it in honey. If a sticky mass sticks to the wire, then it is a fake. If the honey is natural, the wire will remain clean. And in general, as in the sensational case with combustible cottage cheese in St. Petersburg (journalists checked the quality of the "natural" cottage cheese bought in the store, and found that it can burn for more than 10 minutes), honey can be tasted and set on fire - you never know what it was made of ... Good honey just won't burn. The counterfeit can change color, for example, turn brown, melt, start giving off a caramel or chemical smell.

8) Check for sediment Stir a spoonful of honey in a glass of warm tea and leave for an hour. If after that, sediment remains on the bottom of the glass or on the surface, the quality of your purchase leaves much to be desired.

9) Checking with ammonia Mix some honey with water in a ratio of one to two. Then add a few drops of ammonia there and shake the resulting solution. If it turns brown, then starch syrup has been mixed into the honey.

10) Check for odor Natural honey is always very fragrant. If it is odorless, then most likely it is not natural.

Before you go shopping for honey for the whole year, be puzzled by what varieties are, and what color they differ - this can also play into your hands in your search for natural honey. For example, buckwheat honey should be brown, floral honey should be golden yellow, linden honey should be amber, and mustard honey should be creamy yellow. The unnaturally white color of honey is a reason to think, because some producers do not take out bees to collect nectar, but simply feed the unfortunate creatures with sugar. The resulting honey, of course, has no valuable properties.

How not to spoil honey

When purchases are made, remember that honey cannot be stored in metal containers. The fact is that the acids contained in honey can oxidize and lead to the fact that a valuable product will lose some of its beneficial properties and may even lead to poisoning.

If you like drinking tea with honey, do not add honey to boiling water. Already at 60 degrees, the structure of honey disintegrates and it loses its properties. Over time, honey necessarily becomes thick and cloudy, therefore, if the honey purchased in the summer remained liquid and transparent until winter, it is not natural. If the honey thickens from below, but remains liquid on top, this means that the honey was collected unripe, and such honey can be stored for only a few months.

HEALING PROPERTIES OF DIFFERENT HONES

Linden honey used as an antipyretic, it has a diaphoretic property. In addition, it is bactericidal and promotes expectoration of phlegm.

Buckwheat honey Especially appreciated in the treatment and prevention of anemia, with hypo- and avitaminosis, it is useful for people prone to cardiovascular diseases. Such honey has a beneficial effect on the quality of blood and well restores the body after blood loss.

Chestnut honey good for disorders of the digestive system and, like buckwheat, for problems with the cardiovascular system. In addition, it has antimicrobial effect.

Fireweed honey useful for the prevention and treatment of colds. It contains a lot of vitamin C.

Flower honey women need to eat. It is useful for the female reproductive system, it is used for the prevention and treatment of gynecological diseases. With erosion, ladies are recommended to use sainfoin honey... And during the period of breastfeeding, breastfeeding is useful melilot honeywhich promotes milk production. This type of honey also has anti-inflammatory, soothing and analgesic effects.

Chestnut honey useful for men with potency problems. In general, men are advised to buy dark and bitter types of honey, for example, buckwheat.

Honey with bee pollen (pollen compacted by bees) has a pronounced immunostimulating effect. It restores immunity well, including after past illnesses and operations.

Meadow herb honey helps with insomnia and headaches.

Maria Al-Salhani