Hello Adony and Bee Friends, I will trim my comments down to this one area to save the time it would take to read my book if I hit on each point. I always seem to start out by insulting everyone and I don't want to change at this late stage of my beekeeping career so I will say that honey is like any other "organic" product and if it is not handled properly it is "natural" for it to go bad on the grocers shelves. I say this as for a long time in the olden days of California the only difference between so called "organic or natural" honey was that the real stuff (organic a la natural) would get your hands sticky when you picked up the jar, and more times then not you would be looking at a product in some degree of crystallization and/or with some fermentation or separation of the crystallized honey from the rest of the contents of the jar. That's natural if the honey is not handled properly and not defined by what it says on the label. Honey must be moisture adjusted, flash heated and cooled to gain the needed shelf life in today's main stream retail markets. The only other way it could be marketed is in the creamed form which has not been widely accepted in the US market because of the way we have developed our honey markets with visual standards and clear glass containers of liquid gold. *(I know nothing is better then real creamed white sweet clover with its natural cinnamon flavor.) AM>4) Would organic beekeeping really command superior prices for hive >products ? At the commercial honey producer level in the US market I don't think that it would be easy if not impossible to recover the added costs for a "certified organic honey" for economic and several regulatory reasons. It must be remembered that some if not much of the honey imported into the United States would come closer to being "organic produced" then the norm for the US. And some of it, mainly South American meets some standards that the average US beekeeper would be hard pressed to meet because of differing demands of foreign markets that we no longer enter with bulk honey. The retail price of honey today is at all time highs, new consumers are not buying honey because of it's relative high price. Total consumption is NOT thought to be down, indicating most honey consumers are loyal to honey as a natural sweetener and not as concerned as new consumers about price. This is OK for our near future and "if" the US economy grows as some are predicting because of increased government wage price fixing programs and the possibility of a change in government philosophy, one could expect that new consumers in the future will grow into the income groups that can afford honey that continues to return a fair living for all honey producers. Another very big trend today in honey marketing that is also closing the high price gap in consumption is the ethnic marketing of honey in the west and I assume other areas. Most large retailers have separate ethnic food sections. Food that can be identified with large ethnic groups such as the Hispanic or the South American culture market are now stocked with a growing shelf space for Honey which is being met by small regional packers. This area is growing and may be limiting the shelf space for "organic" and all other honey. Honey producers-packers in the south west (Arizona to Texas) should be cultivating these markets as they do produce much of the same honey that if labeled in Spanish as to plant source would sell well in this expanding market. It is a premium retail market, in fact some types of honey packs such as cut comb can be found in the Hispanic food section and not in the regular honey area. The pricing is close to the same or very close, (read below). With honey in the major retail markets the wording on the label must not indicated a difference between competing products if there is no "real" difference in the product. (This would include ethnic and religious labels.) This is not to keep anyone from paying more for the honey they put in jars, or paying the preacher to bless it, its intended to keep those who would only change the labels to match the market and it does work in the large retail markets in California and elsewhere. In effect if there is no difference between the cost of honey other then the wording on the label you can not charge substantially more to freeze out competition that may demonstrate some difference. Tolerance has been made in the past for the words 100% "pure", "natural" and "organic" by allowing only very minor retail price differences or none at all. This would make it very hard to come into the market with a so called "certified organic" honey at a substantial increase in price if one were needed. Some states are very particular about honey and including what plant source is indicated on the label, and do check for pollen indicators representative of the source on the label along with the color and flavor of the honey. I want to say here that because the products in the super market number in the thousands with many different regulatory codes to follow it is quit clear that much honey reaches the retail level that is mis labeled because the lack of enforcement. (This is only to stop the flow of message traffic that will say that so and so has no problem using what ever on his label.) In general food standards are both government and consumer responsibilities and if the consumer does not question the label on a mis-labeled product that product can get get by without enforcement action for years. Sadly this is also true for add mixtures of honey and sugars, and includes some very poor quality honey imported into this country which are seldom checked for anything except to see that if any tax's are due, that they are paid. As for chemical contamination of domestic honey from what ever source, what little is done as far as looking by the government can be counted on your fingers and toes in any one year. Again they have a lot of food to look at, and only run limited sampling of several hundred market basket products each year. Honey like most food products is regulated for quality by the processors that take the responsibility for quality control. Some food processors do have 100% government inspection but most of this is centered around the meat, poultry, now fish, and the cat/dog food industries. (The cat/dog food gets in the act because in the USA it is common for a small but significant percentage to end up as people food.) Next time you ask your wife or mom "what's for dinner" and she answer's "doggy stew", you will know to check first on the health of your dog that barks all night and tears up her flowers, or look for that empty dog food can.<G> I don't want to say there is no place for "certified organic produced" honey, because I do think there is a market outside of the main stream of retail sales, such as speciality stores, health and natural food stores, farm stands, farmers markets, and what few local food stores remain in this country. It may be that today in California which has regulation to support "certified organic" food production there is already a good market for the same kind of honey. The fact that I don't know about it would indicate my ignorance or a relative small market, or both. ttul Andy- (c) Permission is granted to freely copy this document in ANY form, or to print for ANY use. (w)Opinions are not necessarily facts. Use at own risk. ENDOFFILE --- ~ QMPro 1.53 ~ All bees are looking for bargains in nature's supermarket