Hi Peter and All:

>I understand the moisture
>grading but that too seem moot because most beekeepers do not do any
>quantitative testing to determine moisture content other than sealed vs
>non.

I see from your email address that you are in Canada.  You cannot have a
federally approved honey house and produce graded honey without owning a
refractometer to test moisture.  And a colour meter to classify colour.

But, you only need these things if you are shipping out of province.  It is
not a requirement to have a federally approved honey house if you do not
ship out of province.

And so you can avoid all the b.s. that Ted so nicely described!!!!!

Yes, we pay the ECCC almost $600 a year for renting 6 barcode numbers.  And
in the US they just pay a one time fee to purchase them (the same as we do,
but then we have the additional annual fee).  Level playing field????   What
is the situation in other countries (each country sets its own fees).

One of our most popular containers is a two litre plastic ice cream dish
(holds almost six pounds and is as Ted said a totally illegal size).  But
for in province sales no one ever said anything about it, or the mason jars
that we used to use.  I am quite frankly totally disgusted by having to pay
MORE for a non reusable 500 gram honey jar than I can buy reusable mason
jars.  Many of our customers had commented that they liked the mason jar
packaging.  But a mason jar with 500 grams of honey is far from full and the
next legal size is 750 grams.  Now why is 750 legal and not 650?  Neither is
a whole number. .75 = three quarters.    .75 is metric  but three quarters
is fractional
Well .65 is just as metric as .75

Anyway, as you have said and I agree, colour is somewhat of a red herring
(although it gives some indication of floral source).

But the real problem is that the foreign matter guidelines for Canada No. 1
are so tight that you cannot produce that honey without heating
substantially unless you have absolutely no granulation when you are
extracting.  None of my debris is foreign.  Not even out of province.

Regards, Stan