When you purchase honey, you might be looking for a natural, healthful product. And choosing a product labeled as “organic” seems like a good way to ensure this. But for honey it’s not that simple.
In order for a product to truly be “organic” it must be free of chemical pesticides or herbicides. For honey this means that the keeper must ensure that any crops and flowers on which the bees forage (within about a 3 mile radius) are not chemically treated. That’s a tall order, if not impossible. This makes certification of US honey difficult and the USDA quit certifying US produced honey in 2016. Even before that, the standards were pretty vague.
While the USDA doesn’t certify domestic honey they will add certification, without verification, for foreign honey if the honey has been certified as “organic” by the source country. This is done no matter what standard (if any) was applied for the original country’s certification. So if you see honey labeled “USDA Organic” the only thing you can say for certain, about that honey, is that it came from outside of the US.
You might see small producers calling their honey organic, as some indication of how they keep their bees, but understand that there is no specific standard or certification behind that claim.
If you want to find the healthiest honey possible, for you, it’s best to find a beekeeper who keeps hives in your local area and sells “raw” (unpasteurized) honey. Pasteurization of honey does not make it safer, but only delays crystallization and kills beneficial enzymes.
