How to Distinguish Pure Honey

Fake honey and raw honey have become very popular items on the market today, although most people prefer 100% pure honey. The worrying thing is that you can hardly believe the label “raw honey” unless you live in one of the European Union countries or the state of Florida. Since there are many types of honey and unscrupulous manufacturers can mix various syrups or other ingredients into honey, there is no such thing as a perfect home test. You should apply as many tests as possible to know exactly if your honey is pure or not.

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Check Honey Before You Buy

Know the local honey purity laws. Some national or regional governments have enacted honey standards that require the indication of other added substances. Elsewhere, there are no regulations on honey purity, or only voluntary guidelines issued and are not able to force manufacturers to follow. You should check with your local honey laws to see how much you can trust the labels on honey bottles.

By law, any honey product sold in the European Union is free of additives, including antibiotics that help treat bees. ^{[1] X Source of Study} Honey with a defect that significantly affects flavor should be sold under the label “baking honey”, intended for use in food preparation. ^{[2] X Research Source}
The US government does not test honey for purity, and allows small amounts of antibiotics. The USDA mark does not mean that the honey is pure. ^{[3] X Research Sources}
The state of Florida is the only place in the US that requires honey for sale to have all additives listed if it is produced and sold within the state. ^{[4] X Research Source} You must be careful with products with other names on the label, such as “honey mixes” or “honey products”, as they are not covered by this regulation. ^{[5] X Research Sources}

Do not check the label lightly. Check the area around the brand and manufacturer logo for information about ingredients, “additives” or “additional flavors”. Pure honey has only one ingredient, honey. But even if there are no other ingredients listed on the packaging, that doesn’t mean the manufacturer is telling the truth.

Taste the honey if a sample is available. Tasting isn’t an exact way to tell if honey has other ingredients added to it, but if you’re focused on taste, that’s what you need to do to make your decision. Note that the “strange” taste does not mean that the honey is not pure. There are actually many types of honey made from the nectar of many different flowers, wax or even the secretions of wax-eating insects. ^{[6] X Research Sources} Each product has its own flavor, and even honey from the same hive tastes different from year to year, when bees collect honey from different sources.

Most sellers won’t let you open the box before you buy. You should ask if you can taste the sample, but that’s fine if it’s not there.

Testing at Home

These tests are not 100% accurate. With a simple experiment, honey with a good taste often makes you think it is the real thing. Different types of honey have different consistency, flammability or other properties. Although the test methods below are based on simple principles, in practice you still cannot come to a decision with the results obtained. You have to apply multiple tests to see if the results are the same. In many cases you will get nothing but real honey as a result.

Add a teaspoon of honey to a cup of warm water. Stir slowly or without stirring. If honey is mixed with some kind of syrup, it will dissolve in water. Most raw honey, unfortunately some honey contains impurities, always stick together and sink into a mass, or stick to spoons.

Note that pure honey or honey containing impurities is also sold as a cream (homogeneous crystallization) or as a solid honey block. These forms of products are difficult to dissolve, whether the honey is pure or not.

Dip a cotton cloth or candle wick in the honey and light it on fire. This test only distinguishes honey with water, because then honey cannot catch fire. You dip a cotton cloth or candle wick in a little honey and shake off the excess, then burn them with fire. If the wick is easily ignited, it is likely that the honey does not contain water, but it is not known if any other substances were added. If the wick doesn’t burn or crackles, there may be water in the honey. ^{[7] X Research Sources}

Put honey on absorbent paper or paper towels. If honey is mixed with water it will be absorbed and leave a wet spot on the paper towel. ^{[8] X Research Source} Pure honey is not absorbed into the paper, but unfortunately honey with a lot of syrup is also not absorbed.

Word of Mouth Information about Pure Honey

Don’t let the ants test your honey for you. Ants love anything sweet and nutritious, they not only eat honey but also corn syrup or similar foods.

Mixing honey into wine is not the correct test. Some sources claim that methyl alcohol or another type of alcohol can dissolve impure honey and form a milky solution, while pure honey will not dissolve and sink to the bottom. But there is also information claiming the opposite! This word-of-mouth trick dates back to 1893, but even honey beekeepers didn’t recognize it at the time. ^{[9] X Research Source}

Beware of claims that pure honey only moves in one direction or forms a certain shape. There are a lot of rumors circulating on the internet about whether pure honey only rotates clockwise when poured, or forms a hexagon when placed on a plate and filled with water. But there is no scientific evidence to confirm that raw honey changes in such situations.

Check the accuracy of the methods yourself. There are many anecdotes surrounding how to test honey for purity, many of which have not been scientifically verified. If you find a method that seems reasonable, try using your jar of pure honey to test. You mix agave syrup or sugar syrup into the honey and apply that test method. If you always get different results between syruped honey and raw honey, this method can work. However, you should note that no self-test method can detect every supplement found in honey.

Advice

Honey bought from a farmer’s store or from beekeepers is more likely to be pure honey.
Honeycombs are more likely to be pure because they are taken directly from the hive. However, some beekeepers feed their bees with artificial sugars or syrups, so they produce impure honey directly into the honeycomb.
Crystallized or pelleted honey is most likely pure, as some common sugars cannot crystallize. But this is not a reliable way. You should learn how to loosen honey if you choose to buy crystallized honey.
Scientists used mass spectrometry to separate molecules in honey, and in the analysis of stable isotope ratios they discovered different types of carbon molecules that can be found in sugar. ^{[10] X Research Source} Even so, you may not find some honey with added syrup. ^{[11] X Research Source}

Warning

Never give honey to babies, because honey can contain neurotoxins (which are harmless to adults) that are very harmful to children, even leading to death.
Always be careful when handling fire and hot honey wax.

Things you need

Honey
Water
Candles with cotton wicks
Lighter
Blotter
A cup

Steps