I was working in Bulgaria approximately 25 years ago on an organic honey
production project and was taken to visit a group of beekeepers who
specialized in pine honeydew honey.  They were located on the Black Sea
coast in southern Bulgaria near the Turkish border.  They were very proud
of their honeydew and showed me how to differentiate honeydew from floral
honey using (I believe) a polariscope.  They produced pine honeydew and it
was dark and resinous.

We met at an open air restaurant overlooking the Black Sea and we were
served fresh sardines and dark bread with honeydew.  I had my 13 year old
daughter with me and she liked the bread and honey but was not too keen on
the raw sardines.   I know they were marketing the honeydew to Germans and
were getting a good price.  They were careful to analyze every sample.
Check out the Wikipedia quote below for more detail.  Quality is in the eye
of the beholder, eh?

Bill Lord
Louisburg NC (now)
Nessebar Bulgaria (then)

"Both kind of honeys can be distinguished by optical rotation as honeydew
honeys show positive optical rotations, while in nectar honeys the optical
rotation is negative. This is caused by opposed optical rotations of
fructose and glucose / sucrose, which add up in a concentration dependent
manner. Optical rotation in honeys is therefore determined by the
composition and concentration of sugars and used in quality control to
determine the contamination of honeydew honeys with blossom honeys and vice
versa. "

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