>Why is the honey at the supermarket so thin? Depends on what honey you compare the honey to, honey varies from very high moisture to very low. I have seen it so low in desert sweet clover honey, still in the liquid form, that it could not be poured out of a 5 gallon can without heating it. I was told by old times who unloaded rail cars of this honey that the bottom cans would be ripped on nails and no honey would leak out. Normally in the old days when tin cans were less then perfect it was not unusual to have many leakers in a rail car and a real sticky mess to clean up before the car could be released. At the same time I have seen beautiful white honey from our fall Blue Curl flow that would crystallize hard as a rock with moisture so high if set out in the sun would blow the tops off 55 gallon drums and foam up and run over. Every major honey packer that I have ever visited with in the US has some method to adjust the moisture. Most blend high moisture honey with low to produce a uniform project. Some add moisture direct in the processing procedures, some with the filter aid, or with steam on the bottling line. Is it right, well they all would tell you they don't set the standards, and I would think that is about as right as the tomato canner who adds worm parts because the standard allows it and his crop came in clean. (None do that I know of.) Anyway for sure I have never met a honey packer who did not claim that there was actually loss from the honey that enters the packing line and the amount that comes out. I believe that is true having some experience packing honey and know it was in the co-op I was an officer in and also know the loss reported by the Sue Bee Honey CoOp each year. I was once a elected officer of a now failed honey co-op and had much opportunity of seeing behind the scenes of how honey is processed commercially. Some beekeepers who were not producers for this old time honey packer formed a co-op and hired a manager and took over so they would have a home for their honey. I stuck around to protect the long term interests of myself and the old time producers and I was elected Treasurer and left a few years later because of problems with the books and the manager that could not be resolved between me and my conscience. Anyway for many years I sold honey to the previous owner and we were friends in business. After he sold out to the co-op they naturally had to enlarge the plant on borrowed money, (their downfall), and the original owner stayed on to oversee the project. On one of my trips to deliver honey my friend who was proud of his work on the enlarged plant and the new 1st class super fast bottling line he could never afford when he owned the plant. As he showed me around the lower levels of the plant that the hot honey gravitated down to from the upper level melting ovens to be flash heated and mixed with the filtered aid which was diatomaceous earth, a dry power, and then pressure filtered, then pumped to the bottling tanks and cooled prior to packing. I noticed a wooden handle that connected to a chain and followed that chain to my amusement to a regular old time flush toilet tank mounted on high up the side of the wall from which a pipe extended to the mixing tank. And sure enough he had that tank flow adjusted so he knew how much water gushed down with each yank of the chain to mix with the dry filter aid. I got to pull the chain several times and it was a kick as the sound was the same of the old time flush toilets of by gone days. Eventually the tank was replaced with a nice new stainless steal tank and electronic brains to regulate the flow. Before you flood this tread with comments I should also say that every country has a little different angle on honey and different food standards and laws pertaining to what they can and can not do. In Japan I have been told it is quite normal to actually take the honey apart separating everything out, sugars, moisture, and more, then putting it all back together according to their own specifications and ending up with several byproducts and the original pound of honey. I have sampled some of the by products, the essence of honey, and liquors made from what they call the washing process, and must admit they were very interesting. ttul, the OLd Drone (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. 111096 --- ~ QMPro 1.53 ~ ... Where the wild bee never flew,