Testing Honey Quality of Raw Artisan Honey authenticated by science

12 June 2021

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Our raw artisan Honey is guaranteed to be of the highest standard, fresh and more natural as it is managed with organic and natural beekeeping principles as set out by the Soil Association. Unlike the bigger companies we do not add too much heat when ripening, just enough to keep it flowing after filtering and well under the natural temperature of 34 ° C that is inside a colony with bees surrounding it (most large scale commercial operations heat it up to over 70 ° C and destroy all the good qualities it holds!).

This is why our raw artisan Honey tastes so good and exceptional as it comes fairly direct from the beehive, hardly touched by human hand and its distinctive taste is an identifier of authentic artisan honey. Only with us do you get our exceptional depths of flavours straight from the wild countryside having been lashed by the fresh rain sweeping in from the Atlantic Ocean. Each area will have its own unique flora, water and soil creating its very own distinguishing and complexity of flavour from a business you can trust and produces authentic carbon neutral raw Welsh honey, sustainable honey and possibly the healthiest honey to buy available from our raw honey shop.

Local Welsh Honey?

Local honey is simply just that, local. It’s always best to buy local honey from beekeepers close to you for many reasons. That could be for its health benefits or to help your local environment and community. But how can you guarantee that the nectar is from nearby plants? Sadly, all too often raw Welsh Honey is now adulterated with other sugars, so how do you know you are getting the real thing if you live further away and have no idea of the farm or the beekeepers qualities or reputation in the area?

The best way to know the source of your raw artisan honey is to keep bees yourself should you live in Wales! But that is not for everyone… understandably as the beneficiaries of many stings over the years. The next best thing would be to find a local beekeepers selling honey or simply your local trusted bee farmer. But sadly, even in beekeeping there are always a few rotten apples. We pride ourselves at Cilgwenyn Bee Farm on supplying nothing but 100% raw Welsh Honey that is sourced locally. With us everything takes place in the wilderness that is Wales even testing honey quality. We pride ourselves that we are Wales’s leading ethical honey brands and sustainable honey brands providing carbon neutral raw honey all from the raw honey shop here by testing honey quality.

Honey Standards

But we have another step that other beekeepers claim but often fail to do. We test our honey to make sure that there is nothing in it that should not. All beekeepers are meant to ensure that their own Welsh Honey reaches the minimum standard of the Welsh Honey Regulations 2015, an act of Parliament. But ask your local supplier who do they use to test it and many would look at you blank as many cannot do it, normally due to prohibitive laboratory or equipment cost. Not only we do this basic set of standards, but we test it for a number of other things too to make sure every drop is perfect, such as to ensure no pesticides or illegal and banned antibiotics are in it. We are lucky in Wales that due to poorer soil it is mainly pasture and fewer pesticides are used compared to arable farming. With lower pesticides used by other farmers there is a large reduction of pesticides in Raw Welsh Honey.

Led by a scientist

How are we able to do this? Our head beekeeper is also a research scientist and an analytical chemist. Rhodri designs and develops machines that can accurately say what is in substances at the atomic level based at a nearby University Medical School. That means he can detect at the atomic scale what should not be in there (machines that has the accuracy to detect a pint diluted by the North Sea!) We don’t need to, we know where our raw Welsh Honey comes from as we are the ones that are putting them out in the landscape. But as adulteration becomes bigger and more widely known you can rest assured that we here at the farm we have the best beekeepers able to deal with not just bees but measure the mass of individual atoms. The state-of-the-art lab Rhodri uses is equal to or even surpasses the reported best privately held lab in the UK in terms of ability of its analysing honey accuracy which tests honey for importers (as importers are required to provide sample sheet reports) as, after all, this is the lab that designs the next generation of chemical and biochemical analytical machines.

We pride ourselves as being an ethical honey brands providing sustainable and carbon free honey, but if ever in doubt buy local honey, and if still in doubt buy honey online here! Rest assured that our head beekeeper Rhodri has vast experience in analytical chemistry (and also holds positions on several committees with the Royal Society of Chemistry and with the British Mass Spectrometry Society) and is fully able to perform, analyse and produce official reports on samples which determine exactly what is in the honey.

What next marketing gimmick to justify adulterated honey - “I Cant Believe Its Not Honey”?

At certain times of our lives we will all have reached for a cheap jar of honey to make ends meet. If that means buying something that’s only half proper honey or less, with the other bit a mix of sugar syrups then that’s fine – but let’s make the supermarkets stop calling it honey, it’s against the law! It is deceitful and fraudulent. If you are looking to experience the proper thing, raw Welsh Honey, make sure you trust your source well. We are waiting for the time that large complanies will look to justify adulteration by marketing it as “Honey like” or “I Cant Believe Its Not Honey” hitting the supermarket shelves. There is already a ‘Vegan Honey’ made from syrups with no honey in it, again trading standards are doing nothing for the lawfully protected word of ‘honey’.

We have integrity and try to go beyond to prove it. Sadly, not everyone has integrity but have other goals in life, that is not to produce good quality raw artisan Honey, but money. You can certainly tell the difference between those that are there for monetising as opposed to having some really good motivations to do what they do. Read about what drives us and compare that to your usual supplier.

Why get honey from us?

First and foremost, we hope you buy our honey because it tastes so good. Secondly, because with each jar purchased you are saving CO2 with our processes being 100% Carbon Free. Should anyone else use the same rigorous techniques as us we hope you enjoy their honey too. If they do not, if it’s cheap, if it claims to be from a certain area but tastes completely different than what it should, just bear in mind that what we do here testing honey quality is far beyond what is required, but it’s for your piece of mind.

If you have any questions to put to us on this feel free to ask, it will help us establish the Q & A section as if your asking it we are sure others are.