Honey FAQ

Honey’s tendency to crystallize is natural: most liquid honeys crystallize over time. This is a natural, physical process that has no influence on the quality and quality of the honey. How and how quickly a honey crystallizes is determined by its botanical origin or the ratio of the two main types of sugar, fructose (fruit sugar) and glucose (dextrose). The higher the proportion of glucose (dextrose), the faster honey crystallizes. Visually, crystallization can often be observed as the honey “dividing” into a solid, crystallized lower layer and a liquid, upper layer. Crystallized honey can easily be liquefied again in a warm water bath (below 40 °C).

Just as liquid honey gradually crystallizes naturally, a thin, golden-brown, liquid layer can form on the surface of creamy honey over time. This process is also natural and has no influence on the quality of the honey.

Liquid honey can crystallize during storage. This is a normal, natural process and does not affect quality. Crystallized honey can easily be liquefied again by careful heating. To do this, the honey is placed in a warm water bath. The temperature of the water should not exceed 40 °C so that the valuable, heat-sensitive ingredients in the honey are not damaged.

The term “cold centrifuged” on the honey label, which was regularly used in the past, was used in beekeeping as a special quality claim. It was considered a synonym for gentle spinning and bottling. To our knowledge, there is no other method than cold spun. The case law has also come to the conclusion that the claim “chilled” is self-evident advertising and is therefore not legally permitted.

As a precaution, infants and children under the age of 12 months should not eat honey, as their immune system and intestinal flora are not yet fully developed. In honey – as in other raw foods – isolated spores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum can be found. The bacterial spores are harmless to adults but can cause dangerous infant botulism in infants.

The type of flower nectar or honeydew collected and the resulting quantitative ratio of the main natural sugars fructose (fruit sugar) and glucose (glucose) determine the consistency of honey and its tendency to crystallize. A honey with a high fructose content stays liquid longer (eg acacia or orange blossom honey), a honey with a high glucose content crystallizes relatively quickly and becomes creamy or solid (eg rapeseed honey).

Individual pollen from genetically modified plants cannot be completely ruled out in the honey. Bees are not usually kept in areas of intensive agriculture because there is little food for them there. That is why beekeepers prefer to place their hives in areas with little agricultural use, i.e. in natural surroundings. The most common GMO crops are (soy, corn and cotton). These plants are usually not actively approached by bees because they give little or no nectar.

Pollen occurs naturally in honey in minute amounts. In a 500g jar of honey you will find about 0.5g of pollen. In turn, only a very small part of this pollen comes from GM-modified plants, if there is such pollen in the honey at all. It is the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack – or in this case the search for GMO pollen in the already low pollen content of honey. It is analytically not easy to precisely determine the amount of pollen in honey.

When stored properly, honey is one of the few foods that has a virtually indefinite shelf life. However, if stored improperly or for a long time, the honey loses some of its valuable ingredients and changes color (it becomes darker). But that doesn’t mean that dark honey is automatically old honey; many types of honey are dark from the start.

Honey should be tightly sealed, protected from light and stored at room temperature. When stored in the refrigerator, creamy honey forms so-called ice flowers, while liquid honey slowly crystallizes in the refrigerator.

It is the entirety of the valuable, natural ingredients that make the natural product honey healthy. In addition to water and valuable, natural ingredients such as enzymes, vitamins, inhibins and minerals, honey consists of around 80% of the two important, natural types of sugar fructose (fruit sugar) and glucose (dextrose). These are particularly easily absorbed into the blood and provide quick, healthy energy.

The beekeeper can influence honey production by placing his colonies in specific locations; for example at the edge of a lavender field in bloom or in the immediate vicinity of blooming linden trees. In search of food, the bees primarily fly to the flowers in their immediate vicinity. Bees are so-called breeding constant. They only collect nectar or honeydew from the same plant in one flight. As soon as the corresponding flowers stop blooming, the beekeeper must harvest the honey so that it is not mixed with honey from other flower sources.
A pollen analysis can be used to determine whether the honey is actually pure. It provides information about the exact proportion of pollen of a certain type of flower / honeydew in the respective honey.

How high the pollen content of the respective type of flower/honeydew type in the honey must be in order to be able to call it varietal honey is regulated by law in Switzerland. Each plant that bees fly to contains different amounts of pollen and this must be taken into account when analyzing the pollen.

The beekeepers, who are certified according to organic guidelines, place their bee colonies predominantly in ecological, extensively managed agricultural zones and natural, untouched landscapes. In addition to the exclusively extensively used bee landing areas, the way the beekeeper deals with the bees, i.e. beekeeping, is also crucial for organic quality.

In organically marketed honey, only natural organic substances or products from organic farming may be used in the beehive.

With a consumption of around 1.2 kg of honey per capita and year, the Swiss are among the biggest honey lovers in the world. About a third of the honey we consume comes from beekeepers in Switzerland, the remaining two thirds are imported from abroad. Domestic production would not be large enough to cover all demand.

The difference lies in the consistency of the honey. The creamy honey as well as the crystalline honey are both crystallized honeys. In the case of creamy honey, the natural crystal structure is particularly fine. In the case of crystalline honey, the crystal structure is often coarser. Accordingly, you can feel a slight scratching on the palate. Experts often compare crystallization to different types of sandpaper. The smaller the grain size of the sandpaper, the finer it feels on the skin. If the grit is coarser, the paper will feel coarser. Creamy and crystalline honey feel similarly different.