swarm-list Mailing List: Re: Honey verification

[J R (realrambo]

Nawar,
 By definition your honey is organic keeping in mind you do not feed the bees 
during honey season and do not abuse miticide .
So I would not worry about it , when you see in store Organic Honey it is a 
whole bunch of HogWash and simply a markdting tool . 
Yes there can be cross contamination with people who ise the crush honey 
process . 
Re Organic product some are many are not , born and raised in the farm country 
, when Farmers had a surplus of Apple which were not sold they look for the one 
off size and with blemish and sold them under organic , fortunately they connot 
any longer do so as orchards must bee pesticide , fungide and artificial 
fertilizer free . 


Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 19, 2025, at 10:25 PM, Gerald Przybylski via swarm-list <swarm-list 
> [at] alamedabees.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> We probably can't claim organic honey
> because we have no control over the forage sources within the range our bees 
> can forage.
> (half mile to a couple of miles radius)
> 
> The bees may be foraging urban areas where many of the nursery plants were 
> treated with Neo-Nicotinoids.
> Home owners have contracts with pest and yard service companies that treat 
> with who-knows-what.
> 
> If you live near enough to agricultural land or commercial orchards, they may 
> treat as well,
> so that's another hit to "organic" labeling.
> 
> In our personal operation here in our Oakland neighborhood, I can say that we 
> don't
> use chemicals in our hives.
> I was reading the chapter on pesticide effects on honey bees in
> "The Hive and the Honey Bee" (1975 printing) and it did mention that
> if either the forager bees or the house bees processing honey die due to 
> toxins,
> the bees don't regurgitate any of that honey, so it's never stored,
> so the honey that IS capped in the cells is pretty much free of chemical 
> toxins.
> 
> Treating bees with petrochemical products that dissolve into the wax is a 
> problem
> for the wax more than for the honey.  It kinda gets stuck in the wax, but it 
> can
> provide a long term exposure to the house bees and even longer to the queen.
> 
> Rob Keller mentioned a problem with pollen the bees cap and ignore (entombed 
> pollen).
> He said it was high in a fungicide.  That stuff won't get into the honey 
> unless
> you crush-and-strain with a lot of pollen in the crush.  Something to ponder.
> 
> that's my 2¢
> 
> 
>> On 8/19/25 8:58 PM, Nawar via swarm-list wrote:
>> Hello, I would like to ask how to check if my honey production is organic.
>> Thanks
>> Nawar Almafrachi
>> 
>> 
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> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Make sure you're familiar with the swarm catching guidelines at
> <https://www.alamedabees.org/swarm-catching-guidelines/>.
> 
> To unsubscribe or modify your subscription options, to learn how
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