HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Currently, there is an issue in the US with "honey laundering." US suppliers are smuggling in tons of honey from china and re-labling it as local.Homeland security, the FBI and customs has been involved in stopping these operations mainly due to the taxes they evade. Also, this dumping of honey on the market is damaging the US suppliers ability to recover from colony collapse disorder that is happening.This can have an effect on hermit crabs, I suppose, if you give your crab honey that is supposed to be organic and it is far from that.For instance... I walked into the local ACE hardware and they are selling honey. Boutique honey too! You can get mesquite honey and others which claim to be produced from various specified desert plants. That would be nice except there is probably no such thing, according to my sources.Bees can't be directed to do anything, much less stick with one kind of pollen. If you put them in a blueberry patch, they ignore it and find a skunkweed. You can never know what kind of nectar they are collecting. And the chances of a "boutique" producer being able to supply one of the largest hardware stores in America seems questionable. Also, each one of the honey jars was suspiciously uniform in appearance; Brown for mesquite, whitish for some other flower and so on. They would have to add coloring for that kind of uniformity. No doubt they also had flavoring and had a little location editing thrown in for good measure. ****http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...red-in ... lHoneygate uncovered in US stingAn alleged honey-smuggling ring accused of flooding America with cheap imports from China and evading almost £120 million in taxes has been uncovered after a sting by US authorities.

we have local honey bee farms here and they sell road side here.

Sorta the same here. I have to travel A little ways to get mine though because there aren't any close to the house

Wow, this is good to know! Oh, and did you know a ton of honey produces FORCE feed the bees sugar? I mean, if their eating sugar, then they are producing sugar! Anyways, thanks for the info!

What? How do you force feed a bee?

quote:Originally posted by dylan644:What? How do you force feed a bee? I'm assuming by putting it in a small container with sugar and forcing it to eat sugar or die.

I didn't get it either till my mom explained it! Well, you put them in a small container with only sugar, so if they want to survive they have to eat sugar right? They don't even allow them to collect nectar, They only allow them to eat sugar. Make sense?Yes noswad0208 thats exactly right!

Wouldn't they just add sugar directly to the honey? That would be easier than wrangling individual bees into containers.Either theory would explain how they get boutique honey but it does NOT explain why there is no chocolate honey, fruit-loops flavored honey, or extra thin honey for people who are in a hurry.

Yes, but then there still would be nutriance in it. you see if its made from pure sugar then, its pure sugar.... get it? Kinda?

Well I did some reading on honey and pure natural honey isn't all that pure. The easiest way to explain it is it is diluted with corn syrup. Yep, they add corn syrup to it. Technically it is natural...not pure honey. And some producers will add table sugar to the honey. And, yes some bees do get fed sugar water. This is just quick search stuff I looked at while trying to figure out how to crystallize honey in the dehydrator.

I would think "natural" would mean things that naturally occur in honey, not natural things from several other things that are mixed in.I guess it isn't illegal if there is no law. Here's one that gets me:100% Real Ingredients - Numi Teawww.numitea.com/pure-tea/100-real-ingredients/‎CachedI guess I can't argue with that unless it turns out the ingredients aren't really in there.

@Keg, I only ever buy my hermitcrabs honey from local farmers markets and stands because I know the people who own/run the bee farms and trust them versus buying honey from the supermarket that says its raw or organic but may not be because I don't know who the supplier is or which farms the honey came from.I do know that real clover honey has a distinct flavor and color which the processed supermarket clover honey looks and tastes nothing like.There are three types of honey in my state that come from reputable farms Golden Clover, White Clover and Red Clover.The differences in these honeys are color and flavor as they come from different types of locally grown Clover that the bees have no option but to take pollen/nectar from.Golden Clover is the most expensive honey where I live followed by the Red and then the White.The Golden has a rich heady flavor its by no means sweet like molasses or sugar and it has a tart after taste which is normal.The Red Clover is a lot less tart and a little more light tasting than the Golden and is about two dollars cheaper.The White Clover is the cheapest coming from the nectar of the weakest flavored type of Clover and has almost no flavor to it and is a lot less thick than the Golden or Red.I don't ever use the White Clover honey as it seems to be made of lesser quality nectar.I've had fresh and aged raw honey and the aged is by far the better tasting so I like to get it for my crabs when I can but it aint cheap.lol