> Aleksandar wrote

> In my recent conversation with microbiologist from our university he
> categorically said that for Clostridium botulinum spore to be activated is
> necessary to have temperature of 70 Celsius.
>
> So, in unheated honey nor in human organism (children also), spore cannot
> be activated (even if present).


Dear Aleksandar, your microbiologist has mixed up facts. Only active bacteria deactivate by heating in less than 100 decrees C.

The spores are a different thing. To kill them you need to raise the temperature for  about 120 C for at least 15 minutes or to 100 C to about 6 hours. There is no way to heat honey  spore free and call it honey afterwards.

C. botulinum is a main threat in canned foods, That's why you have to heat  it so much after closing the tins.

We know quite a bit more about C. botulinum as there is a lady Mari Nevas in Finland who has been making her doctoral thesis about its prevalence in honey for the past 4 years. The results say at the moment roughly that you can find spores from 10 % in Finland and Norway and 30 % of honey samples in  Denmark. She works with pcr detection.

One interesting point  is a tendency that there is less spores in extracted honey than in comb honey. The process of  extraction + normal  filtering to remove visible wax particles  removes some bacteria. But only a bit. Looking at her data between 10 - 30 %.

Ari

Central Finland

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and  other info ---
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::