Andreeva Alina Sergeevna

Conducted research work is very relevant. Since honey is one of the most valuable human food products, able to compensate for the deficiency in all minerals, vitamins and biologically active substances. But, unfortunately, not all honey in our markets meets the necessary requirements. The reason for this selfish goals is not bona fide manufacturers. Therefore, it is important at home to be able to determine the quality of honey.

The aim of the work was to study the quality of purchased honey from various manufacturers, to detect fake honey.

The following tasks were set in the work:

1. Collect as many honey samples as possible from friends and relatives

2. Determine the presence of fake or low-quality honey among the collected samples.

3. Conduct a study of honey samples for the presence of foreign additives in them such as (water, chalk, starch, sugar)

The object of the study is the harvest of 2012.

The subject of the study is the presence of impurities in honey.

The practical significance of the work lies in the fact that it allows using simple home methods to determine the quality of honey and not be deceived in the market when buying honey from an unfamiliar producer.

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF BASHKORTOSTAN

MUNICIPAL BUDGET GENERAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION SECONDARY EDUCATIONAL SCHOOL №85 ORDZHONIKIDZEVSKY DISTRICT UFA CITY OF THE REPUBLIC OF BASHKORTOSTAN

Section: Biology

Category: Ecology

TOPIC: "Determination at home of the quality of honey purchased in the markets of Ufa"

Done by: 8B grade student

MBOU secondary school No. 85, Ufa

Andreeva Alina Sergeevna

Scientific adviser:

O.P. Gribova, chemistry teacher

and biology

Ufa 2012

	Introduction
Chapter 1.	What do we know about honey
1.1.	How bees make honey
1.2.	Chemical composition honey
1.3.	Useful qualities of honey
Chapter 2	Research practical work"Determining the quality of honey at home"
2.1.	Honey research methods
2.2.	Testing
	Conclusion
	Bibliography
	Internet resources
	Annex No. 1 Summary table of the results of the study of honey samples
	Appendix №2 Photo report

Introduction

The research work carried out is very relevant. Since honey is one of the most valuable human food products, able to compensate for the deficiency in all minerals, vitamins and biologically active substances. But, unfortunately, not all honey in our markets meets the necessary requirements. The reason for this is the selfish goals of not conscientious manufacturers. Therefore, it is important at home to be able to determine the quality of honey.

The aim of the work was to study the quality of purchased honey from various manufacturers, to detect fake honey.

The following tasks were set in the work:

1. Collect as many honey samples as possible from friends and relatives

2. Determine the presence of fake or low-quality honey among the collected samples.

3. Conduct a study of honey samples for the presence of foreign additives in them such as (water, chalk, starch, sugar)

The object of the study is the harvest of 2012.

Subject research on the presence of impurities in honey.

The practical significance of the work lies in the fact that it allows using simple home methods to determine the quality of honey and not be deceived in the market when buying honey from an unfamiliar producer.

Chapter 1

What do we know about honey

1. How bees make honey.

The first thing a bee does is look for flowers. According to their functions, flight bees are divided into scout bees and forager bees. The scout bees look for sources of nectar, collect it, and then fly into the hive and signal to the forager bees about the location and nature of the found nectar, dragging everything into it. large quantity bees. A bee collects nectar with its proboscis. Descending on a flower, the bee, with the help of the taste organs that it has on its legs, determines whether there is nectar in it or not. In the oral cavity of the bee, the secret of the salivary glands is added to the nectar, rich in various enzymes that are involved in the transformation of flower nectar into honey.

The bees that brought the nectar to the hive do not store it themselves in the cells of the honeycombs, but pass it on to one or several young beehive-receiving bees, who are engaged in the reception of nectar in the bee colony and its subsequent processing. The processing of nectar into honey consists of the evaporation of excess water, the decomposition of sugar (sucrose) into simple sugars(glucose and fructose), acidifying the honey and sealing the cells filled with honey with wax caps.

Bee honey is not only flower and honeydew. honeydew honey bees produce aphids from sweet secretions - honeydew and honeydew. Honeydew honey is also valuable for humans. But for bee food, it is not at all suitable. We all know that honey can be of different colors and textures. The color of honey is influenced by the nectar from which it was produced. For example, light honey is honey from lime nectar, dark honey is from buckwheat.

1.2. The chemical composition of honey.

The main component of all varieties are carbohydrates: glucose (grape sugar) and fructose ( fruit sugar). 100 g of honey contains 0.3 - 3.3% proteins, 77.2% carbohydrates and provides the body with 335 calories of energy.

Honey contains a number of enzymes that significantly speed up the metabolic reactions that occur in the body. Of the mineral substances in honey are salts of calcium, sodium, magnesium, iron, sulfur, iodine, chlorine, phosphorus. Honey also contains trace elements: manganese, silicon, aluminum, boron, chromium, copper, lithium, nickel, lead, tin, zinc, osmium and others. Honey includes a number of organic acids: malic, grape, citric, lactic, oxalic and vitamins.

In honey is relatively a large number of vitamin B2 (0.5 mg%), PP (0.2 mg%), C (2 mg%), B6, H (biotin), E, ​​K, pantothenic acid, folic acid.

1.3. Benefits of honey.

The benefits of honey can be legendary! And each of them will be pure truth. Of the 24 trace elements that make up human blood - 22 in pure form found in honey! Honey is an excellent hematopoietic agent! Honey acts on the human body as an unsurpassed tonic. Regular use honey for food the best prevention diseases! Paradoxical as it may seem, but honey heals not only diseases of the body, but also the "soul". Honey tones and soothes, providing exceptional beneficial effect on the nervous system. To know what specific benefits each specific flower honey, it is enough to know about the properties of the plant whose nectar was collected by bees for this honey. For example, honey from the nectar of lemon balm or motherwort has a calming effect. Meadow honey - tones and uplifts the mood. Buckwheat honey has unsurpassed antiseptic properties and is suitable for external use in skin diseases. But honey from blackberry nectar will help with pneumonia.

Recently, honey has been actively used in cosmetology, including at the industrial level. Due to its antiseptic properties, honey has a beneficial effect on the skin, moisturizing and rejuvenating it. The so-called "Cleopatra's bath" is widely known among the people, the main components of which are milk and honey. Honey, due to its composition and consistency, easily penetrates into the pores, cleansing and enriching the skin with microelements.

Today, honey is one of the most popular treatments in the spa industry. Numerous methods of massage and peeling with the addition of honey are currently in high demand.

Honey restores and gives strength, increased blood flow and lymph outflows, which wash the wound and create good conditions to nourish the cells in the wound area. Honey also has a detrimental effect on microbes (Escherichia and dysentery coli, streptococci, staphylococci, etc.), mobilizes the protective functions of the body, and improves immunity.

The most useful and healing is honey collected in the area where you live. First of all, honey is made from plant nectar, and in order to survive, plants adapt to the biological and climatic conditions of a given area, that is, they accumulate life potential in themselves, and bees collecting nectar from these plants prepare honey from it, which has powerful protective properties, useful for human body the fact that not only supports immunity, but also treats various diseases, restores immune system human body after diseases.

Hence the conclusion: if you use fashionable imported honey, for example, from Holland, or Altai mountain honey, and live in the steppe zone, then this honey will bring little benefit to your body, because local plants have protective functions against the microflora in which they grow, your immunity is tuned to its microflora. There are many factors, including environmental factors that affect the development of harmful bacteria. In this case, the main factor in the survivability of harmful bacteria is the height above sea level, and hence the protective properties of plants will be different.

If you live in the steppe zone, you are surrounded by another microflora, against which you already have immunity, so fashionable honey, as well as other food products (foreign) will only once again force your immune system to adapt and fight unknown harmful and beneficial bacteria equally, thereby immunity is weakened, and diseases begin to win.

According to statistics, centenarians are people not spoiled by civilization, which means they ate right, using natural products of their own production for food.

Chapter 2

Research practical work

"Determining the quality of honey at home"

Materials and reagents:

honey samples

Distilled water

Acetic essence

Alcohol solution of iodine

steel wire

Bond paper sheet

warm tea

thin wand

Sample preparation for testing:

All available honey samples must be signed and placed in glassware. Prepare tea in advance, some steel wires and a sampling pipette vinegar essence.

Conducting the test:

1. The first thing I checked was whether honey contains water and sugar. To do this, I took a sheet of low-grade paper and dripped honey on it. If the honey does not spread over the leaf and does not leave wet spots, then the honey is not fake.

2. I determined whether there is starch in honey. To do this, I put honey in a glass and slightly diluted it with water, after stirring, I dropped 2-3 drops of iodine. If the composition does not turn blue, then the honey does not contain starch.

3. To find out if there is sugar in honey, I took a wire heated on fire and lowered it into honey. If honey hangs on it, then caramel has formed, therefore, it contains sugar.

4. We also check the falsity of honey. Pouring into a cup warm tea, dilute honey in it, if the tea has darkened, then you have been deceived.

5. I dropped a few drops of acetic essence into the same solution (2) instead of iodine, and checked the honey for chalk content. If the honey contains chalk, then the solution will sizzle.

(data of the study are given in table No. 1 ( Application number 1))

Conclusion

During the study of honey samples taken at home, from friends and relatives,the following results were obtained:

From ten samples of honey

Normal maturity was observed only in one case, in honey from the Birsky region

The presence of water was found in one sample from the Ilishevsky district

Sugar found in honey and Ilishevsky district

Starch was found in three samples of honey from Kushnarenkovsky, Askinsky and Yanaulsky districts

Chalk was found in a sample of honey from the Kushnarenkovsky district

Turbidity of tea dol honey from the Birsky region

The highest quality sample of honey was honey from the Birsk region

The poorest quality sample of honey was honey from the Ilishevsky district (the data of the study are given in table No. 1 ( Application number 1))

Based on the results, I did the following conclusions :

1. Honey with unwanted additives is not uncommon in our market.

2. You need to buy honey from familiar and trusted manufacturers.

3. If it is not possible to buy proven honey, then you should not buy a lot of it, check for quality, and then only buy honey for future use.

Bibliography

Internet resources

1.http://domikmeda.ru/

2. http://www.medrossii.ru/polza-meda/ _

Aunt Julia's honey

Kushnarekovsky district

Uncle Sergey's honey

Bakalinsky district

Aunt Albina's honey

Chishminsky district

Honey Aunt Guzel

Ilishevsky district

Uncle Damir honey

Karmaskaly district

Honey Aunt Vali

Askinsky district

Aunt Gali's honey

Birsky district

Uncle Rustam honey

Karaidelsky district

Aunt Tamara honey

Yanaulsky district

On August 14, the First Spas, which was also called Medov, was celebrated in Russia - by this day the honeycombs should be filled, and the beekeepers begin to get the contents. In temples, from that day it was allowed to eat it - they did honey gingerbread, pancakes with poppy seeds and honey, gingerbread and other pastries. Honey fairs in Russia begin in May, when beekeepers begin to extract the first honey. On beautiful counters lined with a variety of 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 some kind of substance that should resemble honey as much as possible. Most often added to honey sugar syrup. Thus, it is possible to increase the mass and make unripe honey sweet. In addition, starch, beetroot or molasses, invert sugar, sucrose - as far as imagination is enough. We've put together tips for living conditions distinguish real honey from fake.

1) Tensile test Natural honey is by no means watery. It must be tenacious. Warm the honey to about 20 degrees, stirring with a spoon. Then remove the spoon and begin to rotate it - if it is of a normal consistency, then it should wrap around the spoon, and not drain. Then watch how the honey will flow back into the container - it should slowly lie down in a slide, forming bubbles on the surface.

2) Checking with a newspaper Drop 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 it has water in it.

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

4) Checking with iodine In order to detect impurities in honey, you will need to conduct a simple experiment. Dilute a little honey with water and add a drop of iodine there. If the liquid is purchased Blue colour, then it contains starch or flour.

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

6) Checking with a lapis 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 the pencil into it. If formed white precipitate- added sugar to honey.

7) Checking with an indelible pencil To determine if there are foreign liquids in honey, take a chemical pencil and a piece of paper with you to the fair. Smear a small amount of honey on the paper and try to write something through the layer of honey with a pencil. If after a few seconds you see an inscription or streaks blue-violet color, which means that water or syrup was added to the delicacy.

8) Wire test Take a stainless steel wire, heat it on fire (you can use a regular lighter) and immerse it in honey. If a sticky mass sticks to the wire, then this 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), you can try honey and set it on fire - you never know what it was made of . Good honey simply will not burn. A fake can change color, such as turning brown, melting, starting to give off a caramel or chemical smell.

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

9) Testing 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, it means that starch syrup has been mixed into the honey.

10) Smell test Natural honey is always very fragrant. If it does not smell, then most likely it is not natural.

Before you go to buy honey for the whole year, be puzzled by what varieties there are and what color they differ in - this can also play into your hands in your search for natural honey. For example, buckwheat honey should be brown, flower honey should be golden yellow, lime honey should be amber, and mustard honey should be creamy yellow. unnatural White color 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, does not have any valuable properties.

HOW NOT TO SPIT HONEY

When shopping is done, remember that honey should not be stored in metal containers. The fact is that the acids contained in honey can oxidize and lead to the fact that valuable product will lose some of his useful properties and can even lead to poisoning.

If you like to drink 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, so if honey bought in summer remains liquid and transparent until winter, it is not natural. If the honey thickens from below, but remains liquid from above, this means that the honey was collected immature, and such honey can be stored for only a few months.

HEALING PROPERTIES OF DIFFERENT HONEY

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

Buckwheat honey especially appreciated in the treatment and prevention of anemia, with hypo- and beriberi, useful for people predisposed to cardiovascular diseases. Such honey favorably affects the quality of blood and restores the body well after blood loss.

chestnut honey good for disorders digestive system and, like buckwheat, for problems with the cardiovascular system. In addition, it has an 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, is used for the prevention and treatment of gynecological diseases. With erosion, ladies are recommended to use sainfoin honey. And during the period breastfeeding breastfeeding baby is helpful sweet clover honey which 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 varieties of honey, for example, buckwheat.

Honey with perga (pollen rammed by bees) has a pronounced immunostimulatory effect. It restores immunity well, including after illnesses and operations.

Meadow forbs honey helps with insomnia and headaches.

Maria Al-Salkhani

Natalia Chernykh
Project "Wrong Honey"

Scientific - research conference "Step into the Future".

Topic project: « Wrong honey» .

Yudina Polina Preparatory group

caregiver: Chernykh Natalya Romanovna

MBDOU kindergarten "Crane"

Hypothesis: Winnie the Pooh spoke: "Some". And I think that there are no bad bees, just a person doing something wrong and wrong« wrong» honey.

Relevance: Bee honey is a healing product that is sometimes counterfeited by dishonest people. There are several ways to check the quality of honey, some of which I want to demonstrate. Target: To study and compare the composition and properties of homemade honey and honey bought in a store.

Tasks:

Collect information about honey;

To study the properties of honey; - find out where it comes from « wrong» honey and who is to blame; - learn to recognize poor quality honey.

Subject: honey.

An object: homemade honey and honey bought in the store.

Stages:

1. Preliminary: - study of material about honey; - study of the properties of honey;

2. Practical: - conducting experiments; - module manufacturing "Composition of honey";

3. Final:

- work analysis. Presentation: Pauline: Once my brother and I watched a cartoon about Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh spoke: "Some wrong bees make wrong honey". We thought for a long time, is it possible wrong honey. With this question, I turned to my mother. And she offered to check if our homemade honey is real. Experience #1 "Transparency of honey".

Pauline: We put some honey in a test tube and added two tablespoons of water. Shake the contents and leave. After a few seconds, we examined the solution and were surprised! The honey solution became transparent! Pauline: I came to kindergarten and told the teacher about everything. Natalya Romanovna proposed to conduct another experiment and check the honey bought in the store for smell and viscosity.

Experience #2 "Honey scent". Pauline: We took a mug, put three spoons of honey in it. They sniffed, but did not feel any smell. Homemade honey was placed in another mug and this appeared pleasant aroma! Natalya Romanovna explained that everyone has a smell natural honey, and fake honey has no smell.

After that, we warmed the honey a little, stirring with a spoon. Then they pulled out a spoon and began to rotate. And they saw that the honey wraps up on a spoon and even freezes. Blimey! Pauline: After everything I saw, I was delighted and told my mother about it. She offered to conjure with honey in the kitchen together.

Experience number 3. "Honey Magic".

Pauline: We put a little homemade honey and half a spoonful of water in a test tube. Then heated over low heat, added 4 drops of iodine. There were no color changes, which means that the honey is natural. Mom told me that if honey turned blue, then starch was used to make it. But not bees, but people. Pauline: I talked about this in kindergarten. Then Natalya Romanovna suggested checking whether water and sugar were added to the honey.

Experience No. 4 "Secret Transformations". Pauline: We took a sheet of paper, dripped honey on it. The honey began to spread a little. Natalya Romanovna explained that this happens because honey contains water, while real honey does not contain water. Then we dipped a piece of bread into homemade honey and into honey bought at the store, and left it to stand. Through in homemade honey bread hardened, but in the other it softened. Honey from the store wrong honey It's sugar syrup.

Pauline: AT wrong there are so many different substances in honey! We made this layout « Wrong honey» .

Mobile display « Wrong honey» .

Pauline: BUT real honey- tasty and healthy.

Conclusion: Our hypothesis was confirmed. Honey is a real miracle of nature, and « wrong» it is done by dishonest people. So that wrong honey is not made at all wrong bees as Winnie the Pooh claimed. Be careful!

Our mother is alone

bakes pies in the morning.

With honey, cottage cheese, jam,

invites everyone to a meal.

Honey tasting.

Literature:

1. Chupakhina O. K., Burmistrov A. I., Krivtsov N. I., Lebedev V. I. Encyclopedia of the beekeeper. M.: "Continental - book", 2006

Ruta A. I., Ruta E. R. Encyclopedia of bees

How to check honey for naturalness by appearance at fairs? What methods can be used to determine the quality of honey at home? Take advice from experienced beekeepers and honey nectar lovers.

No one even doubts the benefits of honey. On the contrary, for the winter everyone is trying to stock up on a sweet natural product in order to winter evenings indulge yourself with a spoon or even a spoonful of fragrant amber honey, but with a tea.

From childhood we know about it healing properties- who did not have a grandmother or mother warm milk with honey for a cold or for a good restful sleep?

And everyone knows that honey is produced by bees, and the bees will not carry anything into their hive, and their honey is an exceptionally clean product from chemistry. But our cunning chemical industry has learned how to make honey that is indistinguishable from the real one. Or cunning sellers in the market try to cash in on inexperienced buyers by selling low-quality or diluted honey. Therefore, the ability to check the product for quality is a useful quality.

Turns out, different types honey has different benefits. Healing qualities determined by the honey plant. Everyone has heard about the benefits of lime or buckwheat, but there are many plants whose honey-bearing properties are no less useful in certain cases.

Honey is classified according to the plant from which it was collected, or according to the place of collection, for example, meadow, forest, mountain. Its diversity is very large, consider the most basic types and varieties.

1. Lime. Pale yellow. Minerals in its composition have the same concentration as in human blood, therefore it normalizes metabolism and hormonal activity. Useful for colds and diseases of the digestive tract. Good antipyretic.
2. Buckwheat. The color is very dark. Contains a lot of iron and protein. It has anti-inflammatory properties, is indicated for anemia, beriberi, heart problems, potency.
3. Clover. Almost white, creamy. Acts as a mild sedative. Used to treat women's diseases.
4. Sunflower and herbs. Saturated yellow. One of the most common types. An excellent antipyretic and anti-cold remedy. Crystallizes quickly.
5. acacia. Transparent, pale. It is high in fructose and low in glucose. Stays liquid for a long time. Suitable for diabetics and baby food. Useful for hypertension, visual impairment, nervous disorders.
6. Heather. Dark brown, crystallizes quickly, contains a lot of salts and protein. Diuretic, treats rheumatism and kidney stones, is used as a hemostatic and antiseptic agent.
7. May. light color. Basically remains at the disposal of the bees to recuperate. It is pumped out only in the southern regions. That is why it is considered an exclusive variety. It has pronounced antibacterial properties, useful in viral diseases.
8. Forest. Warm Brown color. Thickens quickly. Bees collect a mixture of honeydew from trees, flowering shrubs, raspberries, blackberries. There are more useful minerals and enzymes in it than in flower varieties. Recommended for colds.
9. Donnikovy. Light color, smells of vanilla. Indicated for atherosclerosis, diseases of the liver, kidneys, heart.

Checking the product by external signs

Often sold in markets and shops synthetic product, which is passed off as natural bee. The bees, having collected the nectar, work on it for at least a week - they remove water, break down complex sugars, enrich it with enzymes, close the honeycombs with wax caps. For some time, it should ripen in the combs.

Unscrupulous beekeepers sometimes pump out nectar that has not had time to ripen early, and to get more weight and viscosity in Bee Honey chalk, starch or sugar syrup can be added.

How to check the quality of honey for an ordinary consumer who does not have special knowledge and experience? Feel free to smell, taste, evaluate for viscosity and consistency.

Taste

The taste of honey is tart and sweet, you should not feel any sour taste or bitterness. Real product a little itchy in the throat.

When sugar is added, the taste resembles sugary sweet water. A caramel flavor indicates that the product has been heated.

Color and shade

The color of honey depends on the variety. It can be white, yellow, brown and even almost black. But always retains transparency and purity. Honey with additives will be cloudy, have a sediment. White grains are added and not dissolved chalk or starch. Very light shades may indicate added sugar.

The exception is acacia honey, it has some turbidity, since it crystallizes for a very long time, and clover honey has an almost white color.

Consistency

Natural honey has a delicate, creamy, homogeneous texture. It is easily absorbed into the skin when rubbed, while the fake one forms lumps and grains.

In the warm season, honey is liquid, and in winter it has already managed to be sugared. If you buy honey in winter, and it liquid consistency, then most likely it was previously melted to give it a presentation.

Good ripened honey, when wound on a spoon, will be superimposed on it with a thick viscous spiral. Highly liquid nectar not mature enough and can spoil quickly.

Viscosity

Real honey flows from a spoon in an elastic stream, and on the surface it forms a hill that slowly spreads. When the stream breaks, a spring effect appears, the nectar returns to the spoon, collects in a drop, and again tends to go down. sugar honey will drip and splatter.

Aroma

Real honey is very odorous and fragrant, but it is not a sharp aroma. Fake has almost no smell. When additives are added to honey, the odor is distorted.

It should be borne in mind that some varieties of honey have a slight smell, so before buying a certain variety, you need to learn as much as possible about it.

How to check honey for naturalness at home

You can check the naturalness of honey at home using several simple methods.

With the help of iodine

Dissolve a spoonful of honey in one hundred grams of warm water, mix well until a homogeneous solution is obtained and drop iodine into it. If starch or flour is added to the product, the contents of the cup will turn blue.

With the help of bread

Put a piece of bread in a saucer with honey. Natural honey will be absorbed into the pores of the crumb in half an hour, but the piece will remain intact and even harden a little. If the nectar is diluted with water, then the bread will soften and crumble into gruel.

With chemical pencil

Smear a drop of honey on paper and swipe it with an indelible pencil, if, of course, you can find such a rarity. If there are impurities of starch or chalk, then blue stains will appear.

Soviet scientist Chudakov V. G. conducted research in 1972 and tested folk ways on thirty-six varieties of honey, among which half was with additives. His experiments showed that this method is not reliable.

Vinegar

Put in warm water(half a cup) a spoonful of honey, stir well and add a spoonful of vinegar. If there is chalk, then the vinegar will react with it and hiss.

With the help of water

Put a spoonful of honey in hot water. If he quickly melted, then there is no doubt about his quality, and if he continues to lie in a slide, then this is a fake.

other methods

It happens that beekeepers feed bees with sugar syrup. Bees produce honey nectar anyway, but there is no benefit from it. How to check the quality of honey for sugar?

1. Put a drop of honey on a sheet of newspaper, blotting paper or napkin. If after half an hour a wet spot has formed around it, then this is not quality product. Scientist Chudakov confirmed that this method one hundred percent determines counterfeit, however, some varieties of natural honey are included in their list.
2. Natural honey does not burn, but with the addition of sugar it forms black soot along the edges of the spoon. You can also check with a stainless steel wire: heat it and lower it into a jar. If there are additives, then the wire will be covered with a dark sticky mass. pure product will not leave marks on the wire.
3. Make a solution of honey and dip a lapis pencil into it (you can buy it at any pharmacy), the sugar product forms white flakes.
4. Dissolve one part of nectar in two parts of water and drip ammonia. If the solution turns brown after mixing, then it contains starch syrup.
5. Add a little honey to warm, weak tea, the real tea will darken and become cloudy, there will be no sediment left at the bottom.

By the way, if you add low-quality honey to hot milk, it will curdle.

1. Honey can be stored for a long time, after a maximum of six months it candied, crystallizes. If this does not happen, then the product is not natural. Store honey in a dark place in a glass or enamelware. You can not keep it in metal containers, otherwise it will oxidize and you can even get poisoned by it.
2. If you bought fresh honey, only from the apiary, and they found foam on it, then this is a sign of immaturity - there is a high probability that it will ferment. Nectar must stand in the combs for some time, then it is saturated with natural antibiotics and the fermentation process is suppressed.
3. Do not purchase honey from apiaries located along the route, it will contain harmful substances, for example, lead, which gets on flowering plants with exhaust gases.
4. If after some time the contents of the jar exfoliated - sugared from below, and a liquid substance remained on top, then this is a sign of unripe honey. Mix well until smooth and eat as soon as possible. unripe honey stored for only a few months, and then begins to ferment.
5. When buying honey, don't listen to the talkative sellers, each sandpiper praises his swamp. Trust only your eyes, taste and smell.
6. A sweet product is measured in kilograms, not liters. liter jar will weigh about one and a half kilograms, if the weight is significantly less, then this is diluted honey.
7. If you like tea or milk with honey, then remember that at temperatures above 60 degrees, it loses its beneficial properties.
8. To solve men's health problems, men are recommended to buy dark varieties honey.

Conclusion

In order to be sure of the quality and naturalness of the sweet bee product, it should be purchased from a well-known trusted beekeeper. Honey from hands in markets and fairs or bought in a store is a product of dubious quality.

But it is not always possible to find a conscientious beekeeper, so you have to proceed by trial and error. Buy a small jar of 100-200 grams and at home take a more detailed determination of the naturalness of honey. If everything is in order and the product suits you, feel free to take a large volume and take care to take the seller's contacts.

Today, absolutely no one will take up the challenge of the beneficial properties of honey - this product is often indispensable in the treatment colds as well as some diseases internal organs. In addition, this sweet viscous gruel comes to the rescue of those who are struggling with excess weight. However, with all this, it is worth remembering that such a unique set useful qualities possesses exclusively natural product, and therefore one of the rather difficult tasks that will stand before you will be the choice of a quality product. That is why you need to know how to check the quality of honey at home. At the same time, it is worth adhering to certain recommendations not only when buying goods from resellers, but also from beekeepers, since the latter, in view of the relative high cost of the product they offer, began to “chase” not so much for quality as for volumes.

How to determine the quality of honey at home?

Most perfect option– the choice of a natural product right at the time of purchase. This will help to significantly save money on the purchase of goods, warning you against spending money on an "empty purchase", as well as reduce the time required to find the right quality product. So, in order to know how to check natural honey or not, you need to know that a quality product can be determined by just a few criteria:

- Color.

Of course, the variety of the product plays a special role here, and therefore in the window you may come across offers of both light amber and rich brown shades. At the same time, light tones are usually endowed with floral or herbal collection, and honeydew or, say, buckwheat honey is characterized by more saturated colors. At the same time, do not be afraid of foreign inclusions, such as fragments of honeycombs - this is one of the most important signs that you have a really high-quality natural product.

- Fragrance.

Like it or not, the heady smell of this beekeeping product can also “tell you” how to distinguish natural honey from a fake. The reason for this is that even a good counterfeit will not be able to please you with a specific, recognizable aroma. If you find honey with a subtle smell, turn around and leave, because, most likely, this honey has additionally added sugar.

- Viscosity and consistency.

These two indicators can also become key factors in order to understand how to check whether honey is natural or not. All you have to do is take a little honey into the spoon and lift it up a little - good honey must necessarily flow in a thin continuous stream, forming a spreading hill. In addition, a drop of this viscous substance, located between the fingers, should be easily rubbed into the skin - the formation of lumps indicates that the honey is fake.

- Taste.

Of course, you simply cannot deny yourself the opportunity to try this golden delicacy. Despite the variety of the product, its taste is always more or less sweet-tart. In addition, the natural product always leaves a characteristic sore throat.

How to distinguish natural honey from a fake: several methods

Since not everyone can rely on their senses, you can resort to more "cardinal" verification methods that can be easily done at home. At the same time, there are several options at once, each of which can equally well indicate a product of natural origin.

Checking with water and milk: "cheap and cheerful"

The idea is to put a spoonful of honey into the heated water - good honey will dissolve very soon, and the fake one will remain in a lump at the bottom. Tea and milk are also good indicators of the quality of honey - the first turns the natural product into dark shades, and the second simply curls up when unnatural honey is added to it.

Determination of sugar in honey

Since beekeepers often feed bees with sugar in order to increase the volume of honey pumped out, almost every housewife has learned how to determine the quality of honey at home. To do this, you need to get a gray sheet of paper. Low quality and drop a little honey on it - it should not spread and seep through.
A slice of wheat bread can be an excellent indicator of the "extra" sugar in honey. To do this, the muffin is placed in a sweet gruel for several minutes, after which they take it out and look at the result. Hardened bread speaks of the naturalness of the bee product, and soaked bread “screams” that you have purchased ordinary sugar syrup with a low content desired product.

In addition, excess sugar can be easily determined as the honey thickens - fake product painted with whitish hues, talking about its uselessness, because the bees were not allowed to collect nectar in the fields and meadows, but simply fed sugar in the hive. In fact, of course, this honey is also tasty, but there is absolutely no benefit from such a sugar product.

Hot wire impurity test

The simplest experiment that can be carried out without any problems at home is the “reaction” to a red-hot stainless wire, which is lowered into a container with honey under test for a few seconds. A natural quality product will not make any changes on the wire, while a fake one contributes to the formation of foreign inclusions or an unattractive sticky mass.

Iodine and vinegar - faithful assistants in the determination of chalk and starch

Having learned a few recommendations on how to check the quality of honey at home, you can catch unscrupulous sellers of weighing the product with chalk. To do this, you need to dilute a small amount of honey in a distillate and drop a few drops of vinegar there. The formation of foam or a kind of hiss will be a signal that the honey was mixed with chalk. A qualitative reaction to starch is carried out using iodine. At the same time, the principle of the experiment is exactly the same, only in this case it is necessary to drip iodine, which, in the presence of impurities, colors the surrogate blue.

Other experiences with honey

In addition to the methods mentioned, there are also other options that will allow you to identify an artificial product. Among those:

- Chemical pencil.

Additionally, for the experiment, you will need a sheet of plain paper, on which honey is smeared with a thin layer. Further, it is enough just to draw at the place of lubrication with such a pencil in order to determine the additions of starch and flour. Blue stains testify to this.

- The heating.

Another of the simplest and absolutely free ways, which in no time allows you to "withdraw to clean water» hacks. The purpose of the method is to warm up a tablespoon of honey and look at the reaction. The charring of the product means its authenticity, and the ignition signals a fake with impurities.

No matter how many home experiments you conduct, you need to remember that not every danger can be identified in this way. So, for example, you will not be able to determine the presence of pollen from plants poisonous to humans in honey - the answer to this question can only be given in a special laboratory. So, you can only hope that such “pungent” moments will simply bypass you, or seek help from specialists.