Debunked: Honey without pollen

[Mick]

Some good debunking from NPR:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/201...oney-after-all

First of all, we learned that missing pollen actually is not evidence of "ultrapurification." We visited one of the country's top-tier honey packers, Dutch Gold, in Lancaster, Pa. We saw raw honey getting pumped through layers of white filters. Before the honey hit the filters, a powdered sedimentary rock called diatomaceous earth was added.

This is a standard, widely used process. It removes all the pollen, along with dust, bees' wings, and, of course, the diatomaceous earth. But it is not ultrafiltration, which filters out much more and produces a sweet substance that is no longer, in fact, honey.
Why do packers filter honey? Removing microscopic particles keeps the honey from crystallizing quickly.

"Consumers don't tend to like crystallized honey," says Jill Clark, vice president for sales and marketing at Dutch Gold. "It's very funny. In Canada, there's a lot of creamed honey sold, and people are very accustomed to honey crystallizing. Same in Europe. But the U.S. consumer is very used to a liquid product, and as soon as they see those first granules of crystallization, we get the phone calls: 'Something's wrong with my honey!'"

[Jay Reynolds]

I'm going to open a can of worms, not literally in your honey, but yes, since diatomaceous earth comes from the earth, care to guess what else it contains?
Yes, aluminum, strontium, and barium.
Diatomaceous earth is mainkly silica, formed by the exoskeletons of trillions of trillions of trillions of diatoms, a hard shelled marine and fresh water dwelling algae.
Aluminum oxide, aka. alumina, aka. Al₂O₃ comes from the clay since this is a sedimentary rock depost.
Strontum is fairly high since this is laid down in seabeds and sea water contains far more strontium than fresh water or many soils.
Barium, also enriched in sea water, is found in diatomaceous earths.

But maybe the coolest part is that the Bodélé Valley in the Sahara Desert region of Chad, produces diatomite into the atmosphere at the rate of 1,200,000 tons/day during the winter.

Over 40 million tons of this dust is deposited each year a continent away in the Amazon basin, and makes up the primary input of nutrient inputs into the rain forest there.

Why would you NOT find aluminum, barium, and strontium in rainwater?

[Jay Reynolds]

Bees are indeed having problems. However, some city beekeepers find their bees thrive. I will tell you that where I worked in one of the world's largest oil refineries , we had a big problem when bee colonies became established in open ended structural piping found all over the refinery. A "Bee Man" was frequently called to capture swarms.

..Amid bee die-off, healthy hives thrive in cities...Beekeeping booms in cities where hobbyists, entrepreneurs tend hives on rooftops, vacant lots
By Carla K. Johnson, Associated Press | AP – Fri, Jul 29, 2011 10:40 AM EDT

CHICAGO (AP) -- Among the wildflowers and native grasses in the garden atop Chicago's City Hall stand two beehives where more than 100,000 bees come and go in patterns more graceful, but just as busy, as the traffic on the street 11 stories below.The bees are storing honey that will sustain them through the bitter winter and be sold in a gift shop just blocks away."Already this season, one hive has produced 200 pounds of surplus honey, which is really a huge amount of honey," said beekeeper Michael Thompson after checking the hives one July morning. "The state average is 40 pounds of surplus honey per hive."The Chicago bees' success could be due to the city's abundant and mostly pesticide-free flowers. Many bee experts believe city bees have a leg up on country bees these days because of a longer nectar flow, with people planting flowers that bloom from spring to fall, and organic gardening practices.

[Mick]

The bee population will rebound in a year or two, and everyone will forget about it until the next time

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-br...s-rebound.html

[Stupid]

What was the original claim, that is "beeing" debunked here ?

[Mick]

The original claim was that cheap chinese honey was being ultra-purified to disguise it, and then then mixed with honey from other countries to get around trade restrictions.

This somehow morphed in the conspiracy culture to "most honey contains no real honey".

http://www.naturalnews.com/034102_ho...mer_alert.html

(NaturalNews) Just because those cute little bear-shaped bottles at the grocery store say "honey" on them does not necessarily mean that they actually contain honey. A comprehensive investigation conducted byFood Safety News(FSN) has found that the vast majority of so-called honey products sold at grocery stores, big box stores, drug stores, and restaurants do not contain any pollen, which means they are not real honey.

The bottom line, according to NPR, is that honey in the US is not expected to have pollen, as it's filtered to get that clear appearance, regardless of origin.

Not a major debunking, but every little helps.

[Stupid]

according to NPR, is that honey in the US is not expected to have honey

I think you meant to say...."that honey in the US is not expected to have pollen."

Here is the United States Standards
for Grades of
Extracted Honey

§52.1393 Styles.
(a) Filtered. Filtered honey is honey of any type defined in these standards that
has been filtered to the extent that all or most of the fine particles, pollen
grains, air bubbles, or other materials normally found in suspension, have
been removed.
(b) Strained. Strained honey is honey of any type defined in these standards
that has been strained to the extent that most of the particles, including
comb, propolis, or other defects normally found in honey, have been
removed. Grains of pollen, small air bubbles, and very fine particles would
not normally be removed.

Strange (or unfortunate) that so many people were willing to believe the original false story....when it was so easy to find out otherwise.
Seems many people have a certain affection for believing they are being cheated by anything touched by corporate or gov't entities.......and are unwilling to look further/deeper, other than the headlines of their favorite lifestyle web sites.

[Stupid]

For "organic raw honey" labeling....it seems DE cannot be used.....

NOSB Apiculture Task Force Report Organic Apiculture Standards October 16, 2001

§ 205.240 Apiculture practice standard.
.....
(j) The producer must not:
......
(9) Label honey as “organic raw honey” if it has been heated, filtered using filter elements smaller than 200 microns, or if diatomaceous earth has been added to separate seed crystals from the honey.

[Charlie Primero]

The original claim was that cheap chinese honey was being ultra-purified to disguise it, and then then mixed with honey from other countries to get around trade restrictions.

Is that claim true?

[Mick]

Is that claim true?

Read the NPR story:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/201...oney-after-all

It's suspected that it might be. But there's no firm evidence.

[RolandD]

Yes, thanks Mick. I have to say that I believed it. Not that that stopped me from buying honey.

[Grieves]

Where bees are concerned one of the major problems is noise pollution. Noisy cities and roads disorient the hell out of bees, and also make it rather difficult for bees to sleep. If a bee doesn't get enough sleep and is frequently awoken through the night, it can't remember new routes the following day, and will often get lost and die. It sounds silly, that our being noisy neighbors is what's doing in the bees, but there's strong evidence to that effect. There's also grave concerns that the new generations of pesticides have terribly harmful impacts on pollinating insects... particularly Monsanto's ever-popular 'Roundup' product, an exceptionally harsh pesticide which its GMO's are specifically designed to survive.

If there's one incredibly serious crisis that's getting a ridiculously small amount of attention, it's the bees. We're more or less sunk without them. That some areas have seen improvement doesn't change the general wide-scale decline.

[Mick]

Where bees are concerned one of the major problems is noise pollution. Noisy cities and roads disorient the hell out of bees, and also make it rather difficult for bees to sleep. If a bee doesn't get enough sleep and is frequently awoken through the night, it can't remember new routes the following day, and will often get lost and die. It sounds silly, that our being noisy neighbors is what's doing in the bees, but there's strong evidence to that effect. There's also grave concerns that the new generations of pesticides have terribly harmful impacts on pollinating insects... particularly Monsanto's ever-popular 'Roundup' product, an exceptionally harsh pesticide which its GMO's are specifically designed to survive.

If there's one incredibly serious crisis that's getting a ridiculously small amount of attention, it's the bees. We're more or less sunk without them. That some areas have seen improvement doesn't change the general wide-scale decline.

Noise pollution is not listed in Wikipedia, where do you get that it's a "major" problem?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder

I wouldn't say it's getting a a small amount of attention, there's a huge amount of research going on into the problem. 500 papers in 2012 alone.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as...t=0,5&as_vis=1

This is a good quick overview of the state of things:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archiv...colony0712.htm

[Cairenn]

I was reading up on this, and I found the possibility of in breeding in our domestic bees to be listed as one problem. Also, it seems like bees that only feed on one type of nectar, are also more likely to develop colony collapse disorder. Native bees and even urban hives do not seem to be having as many issues with colony collapse, as the commercial beekeepers are having.

My research was prompted by a friend's FB book post about GM crops causing it. Corn and soybeans are the 2 major US GM crops and both of those are wind pollinated.

[solrey]

I was reading up on this, and I found the possibility of in breeding in our domestic bees to be listed as one problem. Also, it seems like bees that only feed on one type of nectar, are also more likely to develop colony collapse disorder. Native bees and even urban hives do not seem to be having as many issues with colony collapse, as the commercial beekeepers are having.

My research was prompted by a friend's FB book post about GM crops causing it. Corn and soybeans are the 2 major US GM crops and both of those are wind pollinated.

Bees do collect corn pollen, it's kind of fascinating to watch actually. Several studies have identified neoconotinoid coatings on seeds as one of the factors in CCD, although other stresses imposed on bees used in commercial pollination operations are likely to be contributing factors as well.

http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/resea...rupkeBees.html

[Cairenn]

I understand that colony collapse has been seen in countries where there are NO GM crops .

[Belfrey]

Bees do collect corn pollen, it's kind of fascinating to watch actually. Several studies have identified neoconotinoid coatings on seeds as one of the factors in CCD, although other stresses imposed on bees used in commercial pollination operations are likely to be contributing factors as well.

http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/resea...rupkeBees.html

Most soybean varieties are primarily self-pollinated, but bees will visit the flowers and can increase yields of at least some cultivars.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/conten...00004/art00012

[Cairenn]

I guess bees will visit most flowers if they are in the area. I found a discussion on cotton honey, not one I would I had ever thought about

[allena]

Speaking of DE. We used to use that in organic gradening to kill bugs back in the 70's.