How to tell if your honey is real

Two different frauds

They get discussed as one problem and they are not. Direct adulteration means blending sugar syrup — rice, corn, beet or cane — into honey, or feeding syrup to bees during a flow so the syrup ends up stored as though it were honey. Origin fraud means honey that is entirely real being routed through intermediate countries so its true source is disguised, usually to evade tariffs or a ban.

Origin fraud is where ultrafiltration becomes important. Pollen is the main evidence of where honey came from, so removing it removes the trail. This is why EU rules require honey with the pollen filtered out to be labelled as filtered honey and forbid it from carrying a floral or regional origin claim.

Decide which question you are asking

Before any of this is useful it is worth being clear about what would satisfy you, because the word real is doing several jobs at once and they have different answers.

• Is it honey at all, or has sugar syrup been added? This is the question laboratory authenticity testing is built for.
• Did it come from the flower on the label? Pollen, chemistry and taste are weighed together, and none of them settles it alone.
• Did it come from the country on the label? Harder, and usually answered by paperwork rather than by analysis.
• Was it made and handled the way the jar implies? Almost entirely a question of records, not of measurement.
• Does it meet the law? A separate matter again — a honey can be genuine and still be mislabelled.

What the laboratory can actually do

The home tests do not work

A number of tests circulate widely and confidently online. They should be set aside, because a test that gives a false result is worse than no test at all — it produces confidence rather than information.

• The water test (real honey sinks in a lump, fake dissolves): what this actually measures is viscosity, which depends on moisture content and temperature. A thin genuine honey will fail it.
• The thumb test (real honey stays put): the same viscosity confound.
• The flame test (real honey burns on a match): honey's water content decides this, not its authenticity.
• The paper test (fake honey wets paper): moisture again.
• The crystallisation test (real honey granulates): backwards. Ultrafiltered honey resists granulation because the nucleation sites are gone, and syrup adulteration typically slows setting rather than speeding it.
• The ant test (ants avoid real honey): ants are attracted to sugar, and honey is sugar. Whether they find a particular spillage depends on the species, the colony and the weather.
• The refrigerator or freezer test (real honey stays thick, fake goes hard or stays runny): a temperature-dependent viscosity measurement, which is to say moisture and sugar ratio again.

What actually helps a buyer

• Buy from a named producer or apiary rather than a blend. A jar that names a beekeeper and a location is one where somebody can be asked.
• Read the origin line. 'Blend of EU and non-EU honeys' is a legal formula that tells you nothing at all.
• Be suspicious of a monofloral price on a product with no monofloral aroma. Genuine orange blossom honey smells of orange blossom before the jar reaches your nose.
• Treat manuka numbers carefully: MGO states a methylglyoxal concentration, UMF also tests authenticity markers, and the bare word manuka with no number states nothing.
• Accept that price is a signal. Honey below the cost of production somewhere in the supply chain is not what it says it is.