sugar vs. honey vs. maple syrup - Page 2

[Periwinkle]

We buy organic honey. It's not very expensive actually. Whole Foods sells several different brands of organic honey, including Whole Foods brand Organic Honey (in a cute squeezable honey bear).

I've read that large organic farms can pretty easily produce organic honey, for example, if they already have a big organic orchard and plant their dormant fields with organic wildflowers, then the bees they keep get pollen almost entirely from these. Yes I agree it would be hard for a small farm to do organic bee keeping, but apparently bees don't fly for miles on end when there's a sweet crop of blossoms right outside their hives!

Note that organic does NOT mean raw - raw is obviously preferable for reasons already stated in this thread. We buy both the WF organic honey bear which I prefer in tea, and raw organic honey for spreading on toast, stirring into oatmeal, etc.

[littlest birds]

I'd like to know what certification requires for honey, as I know people with very small farms that sell organic honey.

[sunnylady303]

I don't know a lot - just enough to be dangerous LOL - but I don't think that the certification requires making sure the bees only go to pesticide free flowers - I think it has to do with chemicals used on the hive itself. We have friends who do a CSA and are HUGE organic proponents but they say that honey is hard to do organic because something often happens to the hives and the honey if you don't treat it. Obviously it is possible though. I see them next week. I'll have to ask!