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Subject:
From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 3 Mar 2014 19:36:49 -0500
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Here's a possible step forward for those interested in the "Honey Standard
of Identity" issue:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140226165113.htm?utm_source=fee
dburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fplants_animals%
2Fagriculture_and_food+%28Agriculture+and+Food+News+--+ScienceDaily%29
or
http://tinyurl.com/mm58k87


"...Senate bill S-662, a customs reauthorization bill. One of the bill's
provisions will require that appropriate U.S. Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) agency resources exist to address concerns that honey... is not being
imported into the U.S. in violation of U.S. customs laws. That provision is
designed to help stop honey transshipments by requiring CBP to compile a
database of the individual characteristics of imported honey to verify
country of origin and engage foreign governments for assistance in creating
the database. The CBP would also be required to consult with the honey
industry to develop industry standards for honey identification and report
to Congress on testing capabilities, including recommendations for
improvements."

[End quote, my own comments are below]

By focusing on "region of origin" identification using multi-factor,
multi-dimension "profiles", perhaps even including the occasional bell curve
(be still my pounding heart!) rather trying to define a universal standard
for all honey, false-flag honey can be detected without creating obvious
WTO-violating "Non-Tariff Barriers To Trade" as the EU Codex 12-1981 does.

But even the article above makes a big deal about pollen, or a lack of
sufficient floral-source pollen, which certainly should seem suspicious in
drums of honey yet to be blended and packed, but not in mass-market retail
grocery-store honey, as it is very likely to be filtered out by the retail
packer so as to reduce the chance of crystallization while still on the
store shelf in the stereotypical squeeze-bear.

The other two major mistakes in my view are the harping about HMF levels and
moisture as if they were authenticity/identity factors when they are mere
quality factors.

HMF is nothing but a function of how much heat fructose gets, and/or how
long fructose sits around.  If the EU Codex defines 40mg/kg as the maximum
HMF level for honey to be "honey", yet doubles it for honey "from the
tropics", it clearly favors honey made in (European) cool temperatures in
early summer rather than on the (USA) plains.  I read that honey stored at
30 C (80 F) for 100 to 300 days will have an increase of HMF of 30 mg/kg,
that honey stored at 40 C (104 F) for 20-50 days will have an HMF level
30mg/kg higher, and that the buyers in Europe really want to buy honey with
15 mg/kg HMF levels at most, so that they can have some leeway to heat,
blend, and store the honey themselves, with predictably higher HMF levels
resulting.

So, what the above means to me is that how one merely stores honey could
cause it to not even be honey any more, and that's just silly.  HMF is
clearly a quality issue.

Moisture is another poor metric for "authenticity", as everyone except hobby
beekeepers have run into firm delivery deadlines, a need to take honey off
pollination hives to keep the truck from being (more) illegally overweight
(than usual), and other scenarios where one delivers "wetter" honey than one
might otherwise want to deliver to a packer.  

The packer knows that he will blend the honey, so being a little "too wet"
is not a big problem for him.  But neither party to this fully-informed
transaction should be "guilty" of buying or selling "non-honey" just because
it might be a little wetter than one would want in a jar of honey on the
breakfast table.   Honey sold in bulk by the producer at wholesale is not
going to be able to meet the same specs as honey sold at the retail, let's
just admit it.

But a mix of pollen analysis, HMF ranges, carbon isotopes, and perhaps even
water isotope (if the cost has come down on this) creates a "fingerprint"
for specific areas where honey is produced, and a multi-factor fingerprint
is going to make the false-flag stuff stand out, and spoofing much more
difficult.

I am a truly impartial party in all this, as I now bottle and sell out my
entire crop to my own 6-avenue wide by 30-block long neighborhood before
Christmas every year, and I am done with drums, 2am forklift repairs, and
3-shift, 24-hour-a-day, 8-day-a-week harvests.   Extractor drive belts no
longer scream at midnight.  Life is good.

             ***********************************************
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