organic honey

[blackie]

Hi guys the land owner were my bees are kept on 450 acres wild flower meadows has been asked if he would go organic he already gets hls grant for seeding native plants from defra but could I call my honey organic even tho my bees can fly 3miles? if he went ahead ?

 

[Hivemaker.]

Few threads about that,here is one...
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=21747&highlight=organic+honey

 

[Russel]

You appear to be surrounded by golf courses, you need to check their ground management regime.

 

[Chris B]

The simple answer is no.
The beekeeping must be certified in it's own right. It's certainly not enough to place them on organically certified land.

 

[Tom Bick]

I was told that one criteria to be classified as an organic beekeeper is old queen’s are not killed but have to live out a natural life. So if you replace one from a honey production hive you have to put the old one out to retirement in another hive.

 

[pargyle]

Back to the original question ... the answer is probably no ... the Soil Association govern 'Organic' status in the UK and this is what they say:

http://www.soilassociation.org/freq...d/2408/is-there-such-a-thing-as-organic-honey

Doesn't say anything about queens not being killed but I would think that anything that goes into the hive has to be organic and certainly you could not use any chemical treatments.

I know someone with an organic farm and they have a rat problem ... the only thing they can do about them is shoot them ... rat poison definitely not allowed.

 

[Anduril]

After talking to Trading Standards, because of the distance bees can travel it looks very remote that you could have organic honey in this country. You would not know if a garden bordering the wild flower meadows uses insecticides or herbicides which are not organic.

 

[alanf]

As the previous Soil Association link points out, in practice there is nowhere in the UK where certified organic honey could be produced. Organic is a legally binding qualification. It's as much about the process of registration as it is about the actual production.

Two factors are needed. First only organically grown or natural forage. There may be places, islands, mountains etc, where all the forage within 4 miles is organic or natural. But that's only half the story.

Second you need to produce enough honey to pay for registration. If hives were in the few remote sites that could qualify organically they wouldn't yield enough from the forage that is available to make certification economically worthwhile. If you cannot support enough hives organically all year round to pay for registration, it's not going to happen.

 

[farbee]

What about calling it Wildflower honey instead?

 

[MartinJG]

Hi guys the land owner were my bees are kept on 450 acres wild flower meadows has been asked if he would go organic he already gets hls grant for seeding native plants from defra but could I call my honey organic even tho my bees can fly 3miles? if he went ahead ?

Hi, when asked by our customers is the honey organic we say no! Why, because there is no guarantee where the bees have been foraging; and it has been reported that they can fly up to 6 miles from a hive, which equates to approximately 25 square miles!
If I were you be careful not to make claims you cannot justify, but equally, explain to your customers where your hives are, the forage available and the taste; this seems to satisfy most customers - and they do come back!

 

[blackie]

thanks guys il leave it at biddenden wild flower honey if he goes organic

 

[Hombre]

Honey from bees living on an organic farm and free to forage where they will.

Free range bees from XYZ Organic farm. Statement, not claim; can't the punters decide?

 

[yeogi75]

golf courses use lots of chemicals on there greens