Four things you ought to know about bees and honey.

I love bees and beekeeping -- it's really good for the soul. And my name, "Melissa" literally means honeybee in Greek. That said, two years of beekeeping have raised some concerns for me that I think ought to be better understood by the public.

1. Honeybees are not endangered the U.S. -- that would be impossible as they are not native to the U.S. Honeybees are, in fact, displacing the native bees of the U.S. (which don't happen to be honey producing and thus are far less interesting to a lot of people).

2. It's next to impossible to really get "organic honey". The U.S. doesn't even have guidelines for certifying honey as organic, and if they did it would be pretty tough to enforce, because bees will travel in a 5-mile radius of their hive in search of nectar, so you would have to locate your hive somewhere that you could guarantee was surrounded by a 5-mile radius of crops/flowers that were grown organically. That's really tough to do in the U.S., and if they are or are not doing it somewhere else, how would you know?

3. Is your honey even made from flowers? When the nectar flow isn't strong, beekeepers often feed their bees sugar syrup to help them build honeycomb and to build up their winter honey stores. The cultural norm is that you are supposed to stop feeding sugar syrup when you put on the "honey super" (where you collect honey that will be harvested for humans) in the Spring. But is anyone checking? Or are you eating honey that is actually made from sugar syrup instead of flower nectar? Perhaps many people don't care? It's remarkably expensive to raise bees (if you want to know why I can send you a spreadsheet) so if you're buying cheap honey it's probably funny honey.

4. File this concern under "yikes!": Due to the epidemic of varroa mite infestation that is plaguing bees these days, beekeepers rotate through a range of miticides they treat their bees with: Oxalic acid, formic acid, amitraz, fluvalinate, coumaphos, thymol. You cannot use just one because the mites become resistant, and many of these can accumulate in the beeswax and/or honey. So how do you know if there's miticide in your honey? I have no idea. My bees are registered with the county but no one inspects my honey. They didn't even ask on the form if I use any miticides. Large commercial honey producers (>500 gallons) are inspected annually in some states, but even then, it's not obvious that the honey is being systematically tested for miticide contamination. Imported honey is periodically tested (on a small scale) by the FDA for "Economically Motivated Adulteration" (i.e., sweeteners), but I did not find any indication that they're testing for miticide. And maybe that's ok because most of these miticides would be present in small quantities and might have negligible effect on humans. But it still bugs me (pun intended). If you really want to know what's in your honey, you need a close and candid relationship with your beekeeper, where you actually talk about their treatment practices. Mostly I think it will help if more people just understand these things, so that we can ask the right questions. Bee well!