Purity (Cloudiness) / Parafin Texts

Purity / Paraffin Testing
Purity / Paraffin Testing

In natural beekeeping, bees only make honey with the pollen they collect from the flowers. No other sugar or sugary food can be given to the bee. Bees coming out of their hives in spring begin to collect pollen. They remain in their hives in winter and feed only on honey produced by them. However, the counterfeiters produce honey from glucose syrup. Some primitive methods are proposed to determine whether honey is fake or not. For example, trying to burn honey is one of these methods. If honey catches fire, it probably contains glucose syrup and the burning is actually sugar. Real honey should not burn. Another method is to monitor the flowability of honey. When the honey is flowing downward, if it is flowing continuously, it is real calf. Fake honey often flows staggered.

However, a number of scientific tests and analyzes carried out in the laboratory to determine whether honey is real are always accurate. One of these tests is the purity (clouding) test of honey.

Turkish Food Codex Honey Communiqué (Communiqué no: 2012 / 2012) was published by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock in 58. The Communiqué specifies the principles to be followed in the production, preparation, processing, storage, transportation and placing on the market of honey with appropriate techniques and hygienic conditions. The scope of this communiqué includes flower honey, glandular honey, mixture of flower and gland honey and bakery honey.

The determination of the purity of honey in laboratories is based on the criteria described in the annex of the Communiqué entitled Other Properties of Honey.

Beeswax used in honeycomb making in beekeeping should be completely pure as a mandatory provision of the Beekeeping Regulation and should not contain paraffin and similar foreign substances.

Purity (clouding) and paraffin tests are performed in authorized laboratories within the scope of chemical tests. In these test studies, the principles of the communiqué described above and the standards published in our country and in foreign countries are complied with. The standard considered in these tests is:

  • TS 3036 Honey