Buying local honey

Honey from a beekeeper near you is usually less processed than a supermarket bottle, tastes of the flowers around the hives, and comes from someone you can ask about it. It also behaves a little differently in the cupboard. Here is what the words on the jar mean and what to expect.

Raw, filtered and pasteurized

Every beekeeper strains honey after taking it from the comb, to get out bits of wax and bee. What happens next is the difference.

• Raw usually means strained but not heated much past the warmth of the hive and not pushed through a fine filter. It keeps its pollen, often looks a little cloudy, and crystallizes sooner.
• Filtered honey has been forced through a fine filter, usually after warming, so it pours perfectly clear. That takes out most of the pollen.
• Pasteurized honey has been heated hotter to dissolve any crystals and stop it fermenting, so it stays liquid on a shop shelf for a long time. Most big-brand honey is both.

There is no federal definition of "raw" honey in the US, so the word is a seller's description, not a grade. On this map, "raw" means the seller calls their honey raw; nobody tests it. If it matters to you, ask how they extract and strain.

When honey turns solid

Crystallized honey has not gone off. Honey holds more sugar than its water can keep dissolved, so in time the glucose comes out as crystals. Honey with more glucose, such as clover or canola, can set within weeks; honey with more fructose, such as tupelo or sage, stays runny for months. Raw honey sets faster because pollen grains give the crystals something to start on, and a cold cupboard speeds it up.

To make it liquid again, set the closed jar (glass, not thin plastic) in a pan of warm water, about bath temperature, and stir now and then until the crystals go. It can take an hour. Don't boil it or use the microwave: high heat darkens honey and cooks off the flavour. Or leave it set and spread it.

Liquid, comb, chunk and creamed

Liquid

Extracted from the comb, strained and jarred. What most people mean by honey, and what most beekeepers sell.

Comb

A square or round of the wax comb as the bees built it, capped cells and all. You eat the wax, or chew and leave it. It costs more because the comb can't go back in the hive.

Chunk

A piece of comb in a jar topped up with liquid honey, so you get some of each.

Creamed

Also sold as whipped or spun honey. Crystallized on purpose, by stirring in fine crystals, so it sets smooth and spreads like soft butter. Nothing goes in but the seed crystals, which are honey too.

Beekeepers with more hives also sell bulk honey by the gallon or the pail, beeswax blocks for candles and polish, and bee pollen. Each listing says which of these the seller offers.

Colour and floral source

The flowers the bees worked decide the colour and the taste. As a rule, lighter honey is milder: clover, alfalfa and orange blossom are pale and gentle. Darker honey is stronger: buckwheat is almost black, with a malty, molasses-like taste that people either love or don't.

"Wildflower" just means many flowers, so it changes with the season and the place. A beekeeper's early-summer jar can be pale and light, and the same hives' late-summer honey from goldenrod and aster darker and sharper. If a seller harvests more than once a year, ask for a taste of each. Single-source honey, where the hives sat by one crop in bloom, is harder to make and usually costs more.

What a pound costs, and why local costs more

Jars come in all sizes, from 8 oz to 5 lb, and some are sold by volume, so the only fair comparison is the price for one pound. That is the figure listings show where the seller posts a price; comb, creamed and bulk honey are priced on their own terms and aren't in it.

Expect local honey to cost more than a supermarket blend. A small beekeeper gets a few dozen jars from a hive in a good year and none in a bad one, loses colonies over winter, and jars and labels by hand. Supermarket honey is often a blend bought in bulk on the world market. Within a town, prices still vary with the flower, the jar size and how many hives the seller runs.

How to buy it

• At the door. Most backyard beekeepers sell from home by arrangement. Text or call first; there may be a few jars left or none.
• From a self-serve stand. A shelf or cooler at the end of a driveway with an honesty box. Bring small bills, because nobody is there to make change.
• At a farmers market. Apiaries often have a regular table, and it is the easiest place to taste before you buy.
• In local shops. Some sell through co-ops, farm shops and cafés; the listing names stores when the seller does.
• Ask whether they take back clean jars. Many beekeepers do, and some knock a little off for it.

Honey sells out. The harvest comes once or twice a year, and a small seller may be out by late winter until the next one. Listings say "after harvest" or "sells out each year" when the seller does.

Storing it

Keep it in a closed jar at room temperature, out of the sun. Honey doesn't need the fridge, which only makes it set. The one thing that spoils it is water: honey pulls moisture out of the air, and a jar left open or dipped with a wet spoon can start to ferment. Sealed and dry, it keeps for years.

Two things to know

No honey for babies under one year old. Honey, raw or not, local or not, can carry the spores that cause infant botulism, and a baby's gut can't yet deal with them. After the first birthday it is fine.

Local honey and allergies. Many people buy local honey hoping it will ease hay fever. The studies done so far have not shown that it works, and we don't claim it does. Buy it because you like it.