Fox 17 Honey investigation in Michigan

[danno]

http://fox17online.com/2014/02/25/the-truth-behind-the-honey-labels-a-fox-17-investigation/#axzz2v7LhPy4r

[BlueBee]

“The TRUTH behind the honey labels: A Fox News investigation”

If that’s what Fox News says, then it must be TRUE…..  

Seems to me they’re using their FEAR tactics on honey now. :(  Based on just 5 samples of honey they imply the general public can’t trust what the honey labels say, so Lord only knows what the poor consumer is really eating?  It’s too bad they didn’t include more information in their report about the cottage food labeling laws in Michigan that apply to most of the small time beeks.  Yeah those can be circumvented by greed too, but at least there is an address on them for the authorities to track down in the event of fraud or complaints.

How does Fox want to fix the "problem"?  More regulations?

How would beeks fix the 'problem'?

Danno was that Ludington honey they liked your?  Congrats, if so. X:X  Too bad the general public doesn’t try more of the good local stuff.

[Moots]

“The TRUTH behind the honey labels: A Fox News investigation”

If that’s what Fox News says, then it must be TRUE…..  

Blue,
Give me a break, it's just a local news affiliate...Just how deep do your paranoid delusions run?  Regardless, I think they belong in the coffee house and not in the main posting forum.

That being said....Glad to see you back on the forum.  :)
Hopefully our negative energy won't pull you down to bad.  :-D

[10framer]

north carolina is in the process of passing or has passed some legislation about this very thing.  there is a lot of sourwood honey out there that isn't sourwood at all.
i know of a "local beekeeper" that buys and bottles specialty honey around here.  there is actually a law in georgia that states that if you bottle honey from any other beekeeper you have to have fda inspections and be able to document where the honey came from.
i'm not a big fox news fan (but i'm not a fan of any biased media) but come on.  this is a serious problem that has been around as long as i've been involved in beekeeping.  

[danno]

What I got out of this story was all good.   I think they pushed the idea of buying form small local people.  The honey they showed from Ludington was a friends.   He told me about the story.   He said he had wished they sent his out to the lab.   His bee's are down in FL on orange blossum right now so had they sent his out it would have come back with some orange pollen along and all the stuff up here.  It would have confused people.   

[10framer]

on another forum a well known beekeeper (not michael bush) jumped me because i said i don't filter my honey.  he suggested that pollen doesn't occur naturally in honey and said that honey couldn't settle well enough on it's own to get the legs, wings etc out.  fact is in an un-shaded, un-insulated steel building in central alabama or georgia in july the ambient temperature is probably at least 120 F and honey settles pretty fast.  i'll strain the big stuff out but the rest will float to the top.  i'm not in the syrup business and if i'm selling local honey it needs to have local pollen in it.  but, there are different markets and different products.  i just thought it was odd that his testosterone level got up like it did.  it may be because i keep bees in georgia, he talks about bees from down here a lot in his videos.  i'm not a big government fan but i'm ok with having to accurately label my product, i see what i know is mis-labeled honey all the time.

[danno]

I dont strain at all.   My honey comes out of the extractor into a water jacketed clarifier heated to about 100F.   The honey flows under a weir and then over a 2nd weir.   This takes out almost all the junk.   It is then pumped to a water jacketed tank that holds it at about 100f.  Anything that made it through the clarifier rises to the top of this tank.  At this point it is ran into drums and buckets never filtered and free of wax and wings

[tefer2]

I'm raising my honey prices. All local honey is now worth more money around here. X:X

[T Beek]

I dont strain at all.   My honey comes out of the extractor into a water jacketed clarifier heated to about 100F.   The honey flows under a weir and then over a 2nd weir.   This takes out almost all the junk.   It is then pumped to a water jacketed tank that holds it at about 100f.  Anything that made it through the clarifier rises to the top of this tank.  At this point it is ran into drums and buckets never filtered and free of wax and wings

I've heard estimates of 'adulterated' honey, and mislabeled 'flavored' honey in as much as 80% of the stuff sold "off the shelf" as PURE HONEY in our Countries 'Super" (?) Markets…..

My personal philosophy; ……If you can't or don't want to grow a garden, hunt, fish and/or raise/slaughter and butcher your own meat…(or raise your own bees  8-))….then we all should consider the 'personal' importance of being able to look into the eyes (hearts, souls and even living rooms) of those who do it for us (please, let us think about those who do it for us for just a moment).

IMO; one of our greatest goals as beekeepers, especially those 'in the biz' of selling honey, is spreading the message of LOCAL, and then looking people straight in the eye when we 'explain' how "wonderful" our honey is.  Most smart consumers respond positively to an actual NAME and ADRESS and PHONE NUMBER on a Honey label.  :)

The promotion of LOCALLY PRODUCED FOOD has become important recently for a variety of reasons…of which this is just one.  GREAT DISCUSSION HERE  X:X

[chux]

Hey folks, there is no News source that is unbiased. None. They all slant one way or another, some more than others.

If I were not a beek, watching this story, I would be encouraged to buy my honey from a local beek to make sure I was getting good product.

I do not like Big Government, but I do recognize the need for some amount of regulation. Truthful labeling would be good. As stories like this get out there, local honey will be more valuable than ever.
 

[10framer]

chux, you are right about the media.  the mainstream leans predominantly to the left but fox is just as guilty of having a far right agenda.  it's all spun but this problem is real and it impacts all of us, i don't care if fox, abc or any other network reports it. 
tbeek is right, there is a movement toward that will help the local farmers going on these days but don't be surprised if the farm bill isn't full of things designed to make it tough on us.  big government does seem to favor big farming.
i'll check the coffee house to see if there is a thread but the three million dollars the government just threw out to the farmers in the midwest to help the bees sounds like it really helps cattle and dairy farmers and a few of the commercial pollinators might benefit from it.

[T Beek]

chux, you are right about the media.  the mainstream leans predominantly to the left but fox is just as guilty of having a far right agenda.  it's all spun but this problem is real and it impacts all of us, i don't care if fox, abc or any other network reports it. 
tbeek is right, there is a movement toward that will help the local farmers going on these days but don't be surprised if the farm bill isn't full of things designed to make it tough on us.  big government does seem to favor big farming.
i'll check the coffee house to see if there is a thread but the three million dollars the government just threw out to the farmers in the midwest to help the bees sounds like it really helps cattle and dairy farmers and a few of the commercial pollinators might benefit from it.

You are so right.  Small farmers have been squeezed out by the unscrupulous aspects of BIG AG and BIG BANKS for decades….but there is a revolution going on.. :)   Punishments and most regulations dealt to the masses, particularly those incurred upon small businesses and farms always seem to miss those at the top of the food chain.  I say; Let them eat their own crap…its not against the law to eat LOCAL yet.  ;)  maybe we could start a different kind of JUST SAY NO campaign…….wondering..

Most of the Farm Bill was designed to assist and protect BIG AG….no surprise…'they' wrote the Bill.

[10framer]

tbeek they will squeeze us through little stuff (ironically the farm bill is about to require a lot of labeling that hasn't been required up until now and mrs. obama has also just championed a change in all the food labeling in the country) the added cost of all the different little things can be more easily absorbed by the big guys and not felt as much by the end consumer so we'll be forced to drive our prices out of reach of the average person.  i don't hat big business and i'm all for turning profits but i don't like the idea of big brother controlling the nation's feedbag either.  i know we are getting a bit off topic and i apologize to the o.p. and the mods.

[jredburn]

As much as I hate to give Fox credit, they actually deserve some for the article.  They got it pretty much right.  Most of the stuff in the big box stores is not honey but corn syrup and artificial flavouring. 
There is a unique honey from Australia that is called Manuka and in 2012 they produced and exported 1200 metric tons of the stuff.  In England they had recorded sales of over 2000 tons and world wide there were 15,000 tons of the stuff sold.  Who knows what goes on in the dark holds of ships?