Honey testing

[blackie]

Evening any links were I can get my honey tested to see what flowers ther on ?

 

[Erichalfbee]

The National Botanic Garden of Wales is doing a study and they are asking for samples of honey. They have DNA coded lots of pollens. the details of your honey go on their database but it doesn't mean you'll get the results.
It's dead easy to do yourself if you have a cheap microscope. All you need is a stain and a textbook with all the common pollens in it

 

[Beefriendly]

It's dead easy to do yourself if you have a cheap microscope. All you need is a stain and a textbook with all the common pollens in it

It isn't that easy......there are far too many pollens that look exactly the same. Some are unmistakable; heather, lime, crocus etc . But many are not easy to identify with certainty.
But what the hell......it's great fun on a winters evening looking through a microscope and trying to figure out what your bees were feeding on. Last year was a great year for lime and with a grove about 400 yards from my hives......total disappointment not a lime pollen to be seen.......

 

[oliver90owner]

A bit tough if the pollen type belongs to a non- nectar producer? Time of production is a good way to reduce mixing up pollen types - like no himalayan balsam in early summer.

Pollen might be available, but the temperature too low for good nectar production, so that may mean a wrong assumption.

Pollen types is, however, a good way to check whether the honey is a genuine product - you don't get pollen from typical chinese plants in Norfolk honey! ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4955746.stm )Likewise you would not get himalayan balsam pollen in honey claimed as 'springtime production' (as an extreme example).

Sooo, useful for what the bees were foraging on, but not necessarily their nectar source. Mostly close enough, mind, and results may need some common sense interpretation.

 

[Erichalfbee]

It isn't that easy.....
But what the hell......it's great fun on a winters evening looking through a microscope and trying to figure out what your bees were feeding on.

Exactly
I presumed the OP didn't require absolute precision.
If he did it would be darned expensive

 

[Beefriendly]

Sooo, useful for what the bees were foraging on, but not necessarily their nectar source. Mostly close enough, mind, and results may need some common sense interpretation.

Almost essential to check the pollen content if you sell any honey as monofloral, such as Heather or Borage. It has to be the major pollen. I've never been able to get an official percentage for this so have assumed a minimum of 60% of the pollen from one source. This is of course doesn't take into consideration the under or over representation of certain pollen types which can lower or raise these percentages....I guess this where that common sense comes in....if 90% of the pollen in your heather honey is heather, than it's fairly safe to call it heather honey.

 

[colinc]

I read 50% somewhere recently and I was looking at the honey regs but cannot be certain it was in there.


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[colinc]

No it's not. Just scanned them again


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[Gilberdyke John]

No it's not. Just scanned them again


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Google for monofloral honey isn't much help either although I did find a figure of 70% for Manuka honey. The question was raised in the forum in 2015 but no definitive answer beyond it being based on predominate type of pollen present so 51% seems to meet that criteria.

 

[maddydog]

A bit tough if the pollen type belongs to a non- nectar producer? Time of production is a good way to reduce mixing up pollen types - like no himalayan balsam in early summer.

Pollen might be available, but the temperature too low for good nectar production, so that may mean a wrong assumption.

Pollen types is, however, a good way to check whether the honey is a genuine product - you don't get pollen from typical chinese plants in Norfolk honey! ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4955746.stm )

Excellent! I wonder if the beek who shopped them is a forumite?

 

[psafloyd]

The National Botanic Garden of Wales is doing a study and they are asking for samples of honey. They have DNA coded lots of pollens. the details of your honey go on their database but it doesn't mean you'll get the results.
It's dead easy to do yourself if you have a cheap microscope. All you need is a stain and a textbook with all the common pollens in it

Hmmm.

Eric, I would say it is not dead easy at all. I found it impossible when I did a microscopy course last year. I didn't identify one from the damned book...

 

[Erichalfbee]

Hmmm.

Eric, I would say it is not dead easy at all. I found it impossible when I did a microscopy course last year. I didn't identify one from the damned book...

The trick is to make your own library of slides from the surrounding forage. That's what I did.

 

[psafloyd]

The trick is to make your own library of slides from the surrounding forage. That's what I did.

OK, that's a good idea.