Honey is an absolutely delicious alternative to standard white sugar on everything. Not only is it sweet, it’s flavorful as well. You haven’t lived until you have had local, raw honey on a fresh biscuit. And it’s way better than regular honey.
Pure honey is made by honey bees is an easy addition to beverages and foods, and makes a real difference in the flavor of natural foods. Raw honey can also offer health benefits, such as healing wounds and fighting infections.
It can be confusing when buying honey as organic , raw, filtered, grade A, strained, and pure are all terms used to describe honey. But here we are, focusing on what organic honey from the farm is.
Organic honey is produced without synthetic chemicals, but U.S. certification is difficult due to the large foraging range bees require for nectar collection.
Organic honey from the U.S. is nearly impossible, with most labeled organic honey imported from Brazil, Mexico, and Canada under foreign certifications.
Raw honey is often better than organic imports, as it is less processed and can be sourced locally, supporting nearby beekeepers with authentic practices.
Table of Contents
What’s The Deal With Organic Honey? What’s The Deal With Organic Honey in The US? What Is Honey? 5th Grader Definition Honey Board Definition "100% Pure Raw & Unfiltered Organic Honey" What Is Organic Honey? How Is Organic Honey Made? Organic Honey From A Wild Area Migratory Organic Honey Is Organic Honey Raw? Shopping For Organic Honey How Can Honey Be Organic? Single Varietal And Wildflower Honey What Is Raw Honey? What Does Grade A Honey Mean? "Certified" Organic Honey The Legal Dilema The Moral Dilema But What About The USDA Certified Organic Honey At The Health Food Stores? What About The Beekeeper Down At The Farmer's Market? Is Raw Honey The Same As Organic Honey? A Beekeepers Take On Buying The Best Honey
What’s The Deal With Organic Honey?
Organic honey is a type of honey produced without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. To be considered organic, the bees must gather nectar from organic flowers, and the beekeeper must avoid using non-organic honey, sugar, or antibiotics in their hives.
Even the materials used to make the hive must be organic, and no pesticides can be used on the hive itself. But how can honey be organic if bees can fly freely and gather nectar from non-organic flowers?
The answer lies in the regulations surrounding organic honey production. In the US, for example, organic hives must be located at least 3 km away from pesticide use.
This means the hive cannot be near golf courses, residential areas, industries, or water contaminated with chemicals.
Bees need a large territory to collect nectar from organic flowers, and a single colony collects 250 pounds of nectar in a year, requiring around 100 million flowers.
So, what makes honey organic? The USDA Organic label is not a guarantee of quality, as small producers who make less than $5000 worth of organic honey in a year can use the label without inspection.
However, certified organic honey is made from the nectar of organic flowers, and the beekeeper must follow strict guidelines to ensure the honey is free from pesticide traces.
Is all honey organic? No, not all honey is organic. Regular honey, also known as conventional honey, may contain added sugars, such as high fructose corn syrup, and may be pasteurized, which can destroy some of the natural health benefits of honey.
Raw honey, on the other hand, is honey that has not been heated above 118°F and contains bee pollen and other beneficial ingredients.
Is organic honey worth it? While organic honey may be more expensive than regular honey, it offers several health benefits, including a lower risk of pesticide exposure and a higher content of beneficial compounds like flavonoids and phenolic acids.
Manuka honey, for example, is a type of organic honey made from the nectar of the manuka bush and has antibacterial properties, though it is not always certified organic.
Should honey be organic? If you’re looking for a natural, pesticide-free alternative to regular honey, organic honey is a good choice.
However, it’s important to note that not all organic honey is created equal, and some producers may use loopholes to avoid strict regulations.
How is honey organic? Organic honey is produced using sustainable beekeeping practices that prioritize the health of the bees and the environment.
Beekeepers must use organic materials, avoid pesticides, and ensure that the hive is located in an area with minimal pesticide use.
Should I buy organic honey? If you’re concerned about the environmental impact of your food choices and want to support sustainable beekeeping practices, buying organic honey is a good option.
Look for certified organic honey that is labeled as “raw” or “unpasteurized” to ensure you’re getting a high-quality product.
In conclusion, organic honey is a type of honey produced without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. While not all honey is organic, certified organic honey offers several health benefits and is a good choice for those looking for a natural, pesticide-free alternative to regular honey.
What’s The Deal With Organic Honey in The US?
As of 2021, the USDA cannot certify honey as organic. Any Certified Organic honey sold in the United States is imported from other countries and certified organic by that country. The imported organic honey is not certified Organic by the United States.
The USDA recognizes other countries’ organic certification, so if it’s good enough for the other countries’ governments, it’s good enough for the US. Hopefully, you can see the potential problem with this, especially because most of the organic honey comes from Brazil, which has had many issues with bribery and fraud in its government.
A US beekeeper or company can have non-certified organic, pure honey that is raised organically. However, it is nearly impossible to produce organic honey that can qualify for an organic label from the USDA. This applies to all.
Also, US beekeepers are currently unable to make any organic claims for their own honey. Beekeepers are not allowed to make any organic claims unless the USDA says they can. Is the government going to drop the hammer on the guy at the farmers market saying they have organic raw honey? Probably not, but those are the rules.
What Is Honey?
5th Grader Definition
Honey is made by bees from flowers. Bees collect nectar from flowers, and when they get back to their hive, they use their mouths like little straws to put the honey in the cells. The bees then store this nectar in the beehive where it becomes honey.
Honey Board Definition
The National Honey Board defines honey as the natural sweet substance created by honey bees from the nectar of flowers and secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant-sucking insects on growing plants, which the bees gather and transform by combining with specific substances of their own that produce chemical properties that cause variations in the final product.
"100% Pure Raw & Unfiltered Organic Honey"
Take, for example, this honey, which is one of the most popular organic honey products on Amazon. Its label says Organic, 100% Pure, Raw, and Unfiltered, and it has the USDA stamp on it. In the product details on the page, it says “Country of Origin US.”
On the back of the label, it says the product is from Uruguay and Brazil. You can see how confusing this is and how the US Import honey system is very vague and unregulated.
The honey seller says they get the honey in by the barrel and then bottle it in the US. We believe that, but just because it is bottled in the US doesn’t make it United States honey.
If you are interested in honey that is as pure as it gets, visit our page with honey available by the location it comes from. It’s absolutely delicious, and we have done nothing to it except put it in a pretty jar. It’s actually Pure, Raw & Unfiltered Honey.
This honey currently sells for $14.75 for 2 1 pound jars . Amazon takes $2.21 for commission plus another $3.85 for shipping and delivery. The seller pays Amazon about $.85 cents for advertising.
The cost of the honey packaging is around $.82. Which leaves $7.02 to pay the beekeepers for the honey, transport it from Uruguay and Brazil to the US, move it through customs, run bottling machines, labor, and pay for returns and broken product before making a profit.
The cheapest wholesale price for honey made in the United States is about $3.50 per pound, which doesn’t include the label or packaging. So to sell this bottle with US-made honey, the seller would already be losing a dollar per order at the very least.
And somehow, they can get higher quality, organic honey, from 2 separate continents shipped to another continent for less than it cost to buy honey made in the US.
Have you ever heard of the smell test? It’s when something is too good to be true and just doesn’t smell right. This honey and most cheap, “Organic” honey from other countries doesn’t pass our smell test.
It may be sweet and taste like honey, but I suspect it’s either fake honey or standard commodity honey that Uruguay and Brazil approve as Organic when it isn’t.
What Is Organic Honey?
Organic honey is regular honey that has been made by the same types of bees that make the typical honey that we think of. The difference is how the bees are managed and where the bee supply are from.
Much like in standard agriculture, there are guidelines for how the colony must be managed to market the honey as raw. The distinction between raw honey vs regular honey is significant, with raw honey believed to offer greater health benefits. Because the US does not have any adopted guidelines for certifying honey organic, the US doesn’t have any US-produced organic honey.
Generally, in order for bees to produce organic honey, they must be kept in an area free of pesticides, and genetically modified crops (GMO) and the colony kept healthy without any synthetic chemicals. It doesn’t mean no chemicals; it just means that the approved organic chemicals are used.
How Is Organic Honey Made?
Honeybees forage from flowers naturally, and they will go to any flower producing the best nectar. This can be a flower 3 miles from their colony or 30 yards.
They want to make the most of their time and energy. Both organic and inorganic flowers are visited by the bees. So it is not possible to get bees to skip inorganic flowers.
The only option that beekeepers have to force their bees to visit organic flowers is to place the colony in a location that has 100% organic flowers in the area. Only then is the honey produced from those flowers organic.
A jar of honey that says “unfiltered honey”, does not mean that it is organic. Organic honey can be filtered so much that it doesn’t have any pollen in it. I know it’s confusing… Sorry.
Organic Honey From A Wild Area
A beekeeper can either build their apiary (group of beehives) in a location that does not use any type of synthetic herbicides or pesticides to care for their plants. The beekeepers need to be sure the surrounding 5 miles on all sides of the colonies are free of these synthetic chemicals.
This is a large area and difficult to do in the United States, but it can be done in other rural areas of the world. The surrounding 5 miles will need to be free of these chemicals because honey bees will travel up to 5 miles in search of nectar, pollen, and water.
A beekeeper cannot control where their bees go once they leave the colony, so it’s important for the beekeeper to know the surrounding area if they are wanting to sell certified organic honey.
Read Why Did My Package of Bees Leave to learn more.
Once the bees forage on the surrounding flowers and have turned them into honey inside the colony, the beekeeper can harvest the honey from the hive and sell it as organic honey.
The hives are left in this area year round, and the bees can continue to forage from the flowers and make more honey.
Migratory Organic Honey
The other option for the beekeeper is to move the colony to an area that has an organically certified farm or a farm that does not use any synthetic pesticides or herbicides. Honeybee colonies can be physically moved around and transported on a truck from farm to farm across the country. This is how most of the world’s pollination of fruits and vegetables occurs.
The trouble with moving a colony to an organic farm or similar site is the farm may not produce enough nectar or pollen for the bees to eat and survive on year around. When this happens, the colony would need to be transported to another place where they can survive. The beekeeper will need to feed the bees an organically acceptable corn syrup or sugar water feed for the colony to live on.
To move the colony to the farm, the beekeeper would need to prepare the equipment for the bees to store the honey in. These are called supers or honey boxes by beekeepers. Once the colony is moved to the organic farm, the beekeeper would place these empty boxes on the colony for the bees to store their honey.
As soon as the bees cannot store additional honey in the boxes because the nectar has stopped , the beekeeper would then remove the full honey boxes and harvest them.
By doing it this way, the beekeeper would know the honey in those boxes came from that farm, and they cannot be contaminated by another source of nectar that may not be organic.
This is actually how varietals of honey is made. If a beekeeper wants to make Tupelo Honey or Fireweed Honey, the beekeeper will move the colonies to where those plants are about to bloom. Then once the source of nectar they are targeting for honey stops blooming, the boxes are harvested.
Is Organic Honey Raw?
Organic and raw are two different terms used to describe pure honey vs raw honey. Honey can be raw but not organic. Pure honey can also be organic but not raw.
When comparing raw honey vs regular honey, raw honey is often considered to offer greater health benefits due to minimal processing, which helps retain more nutrients and enzymes.
If honey is organic, it means it is supposed to come from bees that have foraged for pollen and nectar on flowers that have not been exposed to any synthetic pesticides or herbicides.
They must also be from a beekeeping operation that doesn’t use synthetic pest controls on the bees, among other things.
Beyond this, the honey can be treated any way the beekeepers want to in preparation for the market. So the beekeeper can heat or filter the honey as desired during production before the customer receiving the honey.
Read more about how we wrote about filtering honey and if it retains all the good pollen, enzymes and amino acids.
Shopping For Organic Honey
If shopping for organic honey is important to you, you should opt for honey that claims it is Organic and raw. This honey will have the highest probability of having all of the natural minerals, vitamins, and beneficial properties naturally found in honey.
How Can Honey Be Organic?
Regardless if you call the organic, raw, unprocessed, etc… it is good for you. Don’t think that just because the honey is not or is organic that it is more or less healthy.
There is a point where it’s just splitting hairs, but it is important to know what organic honey is. Bees travel from flower to flower, collecting nectar and depositing pollen on each flower.
The flowers need to be organic as well, which means the area the bees are foraging on needs to be 100% natural without any synthetic farming or growing processes.
There are only certain parts of the world that have these types of environments. Most of the organic honey in the US comes from Brazil, which makes sense because Brazil is mostly an unmanaged rainforest.
Because of this, Brazil is a natural environment where organic honey can be made. When looking at bottles of honey , check the source of the honey, and you will often find it is from South America.
Single Varietal And Wildflower Honey
We mentioned earlier that wildflower honey from a purely organic environment can be an opportunity to produce organic honey. Wildflower honey is the only type that can be organic because most farms with an area large enough for bees to forage from are usually non-organic farms.
If you are shopping and you see Orange Blossom Honey, Avocado Honey, Blueberry Honey, or most other single source type of honey, they are typically from conventional farms that require non-organic pesticides and herbicides for their farm.
So those types of honey, even though they may be delicious honey, are typically never going to be organic. In order for those to be considered single-source honey and not wildflower honey, that honey has to be at least 51% from that plant.
What Is Raw Honey?
When it comes to buying unfiltered, raw, and organic honey in the United States, the best option is to buy honey that is labeled “Raw Honey.”
This means that the raw honey has never been heated or only been heated to a temperature the bees are naturally able to get the honey temperature too.
This is typically around 100°F. Inside a hot beehive on a hot day, the honey can get that warm inside the hive. No regulation monitors the word “raw” on honey, but this is the general understanding of the word.
The rule of thumb beekeepers use is to keep the honey temperature below 105°F. Above 105°F, the natural enzymes in the honey start to degrade, so you can be assured that the honey is still raw.
There is no regulation that controls how much heat can be applied to honey to prevent antioxidants and other nutrients or compounds from being destroyed. But this is just general common sense based on how hot honey gets naturally inside the hive.
Usually, raw honey is also unfiltered or “gently strained.”This means that the strainer or filter used to remove debris from the honey is course enough to let 100% of the pollen and enzymes through but small enough to keep bits of wax, bees, and debris out of the honey. This is something that nearly all beekeepers do before bottling.
What Does Grade A Honey Mean?
Honey that has been labeled “Grade A” has likely been ultra-filtered and likely heated to remove any pollen or other small particles out. It’s best to buy honey that has not been graded by the USDA. That sounds counterintuitive, but the USDA standards for honey are backward and require all honey to be ultra-filtered and heated. So avoid “Grade A” honey if you want wan the natural enzymes and antioxidants still in your honey.
"Certified" Organic Honey
It’s tough making sense of all the honey available. That is because there are lot of gray areas for the casual honey shopper. I think egg shopping is more straightforward than buying honey off the shelf. And we all know how confusing egg packaging can be.
This is the most popular organic honey on Amazon and is sold by Whole Foods. It has the USDA Organic Seal and also says US Grade A on it.
If you look at the honey (click the 2nd image below) the back label says its a product of Mexico, Uruguay and Brazil. All 3 countries!. Yikes…This is true of all certified organic honey in the US.
The Legal Dilema
The USDA, which certifies organic foods, never adopted (as of 2021) standards to certify honey as organic. Organic isn’t an adjective or a sign for natural food. It is a certification given by the government, specifically, the USDA. This is a certification with some really strict guidelines, by the way.
Because the USDA has no standard for organic honey, not a single beekeeper can legally label or tell consumers their honey is organic. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the nature of the beast. The closest thing we have in the US to certified organic honey is Certified Naturally Grown . This is a reasonable and respectable goal for any beekeeper.
The Moral Dilema
Bees forage three miles in all directions around the hive and possibly up to five miles around the hive for pollen and nectar. This is an area of just over 78 square miles of potential forage for one hive. Even if the bees foraged for three miles, that’s 28 square miles.
In the 28-78 square miles, the plants must be free of fungicides, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers. They must also not be genetically modified. These four requirements alone make organically produced honey practically impossible for any US-based beekeeper. Any US beekeeper labeling their honey as organic would be significantly bending the truth to increase profit and sales.
Hawaii is a source of Honey from the US that could possibly be Organic. There are some beekeepers that are able to sell their honey this way because of the natural landscape in Hawaii , but it is becoming increasingly difficult for them.
Even these honey in Hawaii that say they are organic don’t have the USDA Organic sticker.
But What About The USDA Certified Organic Honey At The Health Food Stores?
The USDA recognizes the organic certifications from other countries and all of organic honey is from other countries. Brazil, Mexico, and Canada produce most of the organic honey sold in the US. Read all about it here.
Organic honey is 100% honey and has all the same health benefits as nonorganic honey of the same quality. There would also not be any sweeteners, corn syrup, or other syrups.
What About The Beekeeper Down At The Farmer's Market?
Most customers search for honey at farmers’ markets, which is a great place to find the sweet stuff made by bees. This is often where you will find the best honey as well.
We typically recommend a farmer’s market as a reliable source to find local honey for customers out of state. Typically at these farmers markets is where you will mostly find wildflower honey. The most popular honey in the US, Clover Honey, is produced mostly in North Dakota and South Dakota.
The USDA has an organic exception for food producers that sell less than $5,000 a year. Read more details here. The exemption allows the seller to use the USDA organic label or the word “organic”, without having to get officially certified.
However, the seller must be truthful in advertising and follow all organic requirements. Any beekeeper can say their honey is organic, but they have to be confident all 28-78 square miles around their hives qualify as organic.
You could imagine how difficult this would be for a beekeeper to make that claim honestly. As beekeepers, they have no control over where their colony sends each bee to forage.
We obviously don’t advertise our honey as organic, but it is raw, unfiltered, and local (if you are from Alabama). If you want to support us and order our honey, s ee all the honey we offer.
Is Raw Honey The Same As Organic Honey?
Organic honey is not the same as raw honey as they mean two completely different things. Honey can be considered organic, but can still be heated above 105° while it is being processed.
Honey can be raw, but not be organic because the flowers the bees foraged from were not organic. It is confusing to say the least, because there is little control over the terms used to describe honey produced in the US.
Honey that has come from a beekeeper in the area being sold is most likely to be raw, but not organic.
This type of honey is likely the best quality available as a backyard, local beekeepers can easily produce raw honey and are not allowed to describe their honey as organic.
If a local beekeeper is describing their honey as organic, they are either unaware of the laws surrounding organic honey or are deceiving their customers on purpose.
A Beekeepers Take On Buying The Best Honey
If eating organic honey is very important to you, then you will have to source your honey from international sources. Even then, it is possible that the organic certification from other countries may not be to the level you are hoping for.
When there is a lot of money to be made, there is an opportunity for fraud. The US is constantly fighting to prevent that from happening during the importation of honey.
If you are a honey lover and are looking for a high-quality honey from your area, look no further than your local beekeeper selling their raw honey. It may not be labeled organic, but it is likely given to you close to how the bees make it. And it is hard to beat that. Remember, bees > beekeeper > you is way better than Bees > Beekeeper > Exporter > Foreign Customers > Domestic Customs > Importer > Bottler > Amazon > You
Adam Hickman owns Foxhound Bee Company and is a certified EAS Master Beekeeper. Before ever selling a box through Foxhound Bee Company, Adam wrote beekeeping blogs for education. Adam regularly teaches beekeeping classes through Foxhound Bee Co and also through his local beekeeping club.
