One of these consisted of "trapping" some of the cheats who, under the cover of their status as producers, done not hesitate to resell as "harvested and placed in pots by the beekeeper" imported honey bought in barrels supplied by wholesalers.

This inquiry was a success and became the object of an administrative communication (no.100, dated June 1997). It is apparently, on the basis of these elements that M. Guillaume Crouzet published in the newspaper "Le Monde" on the 29/10/97, an article that deserved more precision with the vocabulary used. In effect the author appeared unable to distinguish between:

• the profession of the Beekeeper: the raising of bees, production, and sale of honey to wholesalers,
• the profession of the Conditioner: selection of honeys in barrels(harvested by the conditioner, if he or she is a beekeeper, and/or bought from other producers or merchants) and then put into pots, for resale in grocers, supermarkets or specialised retailers,
• and the specialist retailer: direct sales to the public of honey, apicultural products, diversified honey products: sweets, cakes, gingerbread etc…

It is not because occasionally (but in fact, more rarely when labels try to make one believe) the same person exercises the three activities, that one must confuse and mix these very different competencies.

To make a comparison, it happens that profession of a Journalist and the trade of a Newsagent are practiced by the same person, without any confusion between the two competencies. (It appears that, even the newspaper proprietors themselves, have, at one time or another in their career, sold their own newspaper to the public. There is nothing degrading about it).

This inaccuracy, is the source of numerous misunderstandings, sometimes-genuine fraud. In the consumer countries of Northern Europe, (Germany in particular) fraud is frequent. Almost all the small and medium conditioners present themselves to the consumer under the term of "IMKER", that is to say "beekeepers", with the objective, of course, to make the consumer believe that the honey in the pot was harvested, personally, by the person who’s name is on the label.

In France, this abuse of confidence is observed more and more. It is due in part to the conditioners, showing a disloyal attitude, faced with the increasing number of beekeepers willing to market their own products. Honesty in the system is possible. It only requires the conditioners who wish to achieve quality and personalise their range of products, to indicate at the side of their name or trademark the name of the honey producer. This is perfectly achievable. A professional beekeeper produces several tens of tonnes each year. This is a large enough to constitute a lot in the conditioning chain. In this way the consumer will be respected with total transparency.

One is, on this point, far from a semantic quarrel.

Concerning adulteration, from a macro-economic point of view, the beekeeper is the first victim of fraud. Effectively, when considering the setting of the ideal price, with all possible arguments that relate to the supply and demand for the products in total transparency, any artificial and fraudulent increase in the supply introduces a lowering of prices, with the immediate prejudice to the producer.

Therefore, to read in article about an inquiry asked for by our union of professional beekeepers, that it is "the beekeepers" that are fraudulent, is a little frustrating. In effect, the "individuals" who should be reported are those conditioners, presenting themselves under the statute of beekeeper so as to deceive their clients. They are false beekeepers.

Between 80,000 and 100,000 individuals own approximately 1,500,000 hives, these being divided in the following way:

• 1,500 to 2,000 professional beekeepers
• 5,000 to 6,000 semi-professional beekeepers:

who between themselves hold approximately 900,000 to 1,000,000 hives.

The rest are held by "amateur beekeepers".*

Only honey produced by the professionals and the semi-professionals enters into the commercial circuit, either by direct farm sales and markets, or when potted and distributed to hypermarkets, supermarkets or other types of stores.

In most cases, the production from amateur beekeepers is consumed by the household or given away. Sometimes, but rarely it is sold to neighbours or colleagues at work.

7 conditioners specialise in the conditioning of honey. The largest treats 8,000+ tonnes/year (comparing with Germany, where the leader treats 20,000+ tonnes).

Sociologically, the professionals are:

Many are new-comers attracted to the "country way of living", often impassioned by their craft, and use the most modern and sophisticated methods.

The semi-professionals are largely workers or employees who use Beekeeping as a complement in revenue often not negligible. (There are almost all types of career represented: teachers, police, civil servants, self employed, etc…)

The amateurs: These range from the caretaker of the Paris opera house, up to the President of the French Republic, passing through artist and lawyer etc.

Note that:

• The minimum number of hives required to be considered, as a professional is 400 (legally fixed).
• A retired professional may continue with up to 80 hives
• Beyond the 11th. Hive, a declaration to the tax office is obliged.

The total consumption (table honey and bakers’ honey) is in the order of 500 to 700 gr. per inhabitant per year, which makes up approximately as follows:

• French production 30 to 40,000 tonnes
• Importation 6 to 12,000 tonnes
• Exportation 2 to 5,000 tonnes

The production of honey is subject to considerable variations in quantity resulting from meteorological conditions as well as many other factors.

For certain specific types of honey, there arrives, sometimes quiet often that the harvest is non-existent: Mountain, pine, and heather for example.

If France is self-sufficient to a level of 80%, the European Union is only to a level of 50%(production @ 130,000 tonnes).

Only the countries of Greece, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal are considered honey producers.

Those of the United Kingdom, Benelux, Germany and Denmark, hold except for rare exceptions, only amateurs whose production never enters the commercial wholesale market.

The honey in these countries, as sold in the supermarkets (apart from a small percentage of specialised honeys) are imported from the third world.

The consumption by head and by year is very unequal: more than 1kg. in Greece, Switzerland and Germany, to less than 500 gr. in the Iberian Peninsula, with the rest of the European Union consuming between 500 gr. and 1kg..

• THE REST OF WORLD

World production is estimated by the Food and Agricultural Organisation to be about 1,200,000 tonnes with close to 300,000 tonnes (very variable amounts), being the object of international trade( in barrels of 300 kg.)

There are 3 large exporting countries: China, Argentina and Mexico, and 3 importing areas: Japan, U.S.A. and the E.U.

A considerable number of other countries export, but at a much more modest level: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Cuba, Turkey, Romania, Poland etc…

Saudi Arabia, the Maghreb and the Middle Eastern countries import modest levels of honey but in pots only…

World production has had a tendency to stagnate or to diminish, a logical consequence with the collapse in prices at the end of the 1980’s, even though the demand has been sustained, due to the also logical tendency towards the "natural", "healthy" and "authentic".

There are in each country, 2 very different production methods:

1. The Specialised Bee Businesses

From a hundred or so hives for the smaller concerns up to several thousand for the largest units of production in the U.S.A. The average size being situated between 200 and 1000 hives. Without exception, the honey is stocked by the producer in barrels of 300 kg, sent to the conditioner or the co-operative and exported in this state. In this case, there is usually no re-melting, mixing or blending between the producer and the conditioning factory. The risk of honey adulteration is therefore practically nil.

Everywhere, there exists peasants and workers who collect honey and wax from wild bee colonies or their own stocks. This production is undertaken in conditions of limited hygiene and the produce stocked in assorted containers. It is then collected by the intermediates that send to co-operatives or the specialised merchants.

The following stage involves the exporter, who mixes the lots of honey in suitably sized containers, then stocks the merchandise before transportation, in barrels of 300 kg.

These honey lots are homogeneous and particularly appreciated by the industrialist who prefer, as ingredient for their preparations, a constant quality throughout the year.

In this case, the risk of adulteration is at a maximum.

In China, one does not enter into the "honey factories". It is "top secret". The buildings are immense, several thousand square meters in surface area, and highly protected: fenced off, guards and loud speakers. (In Vietnam ,visits are possible. The buildings cover only some hundreds of square meters, and are polyvalent. They are often used to brew beer for example. The access is authorised, and apparently in all cases there is nothing to hide).

The Chinese "technique(or techniques) of production" are not really known. The most probable hypothesis is the following:

1. The honey is taken from the hives, before capping has taken place, with a humidity of 25 to 35%, that is to say well before the honey is ripe. Recall that European regulations state that a maximum of 21% humidity is authorised. A quality honey indicates less than 18%.
2. It is extracted and stocked in astounding containers( various types, rusty etc…) waiting to be collected .
3. The former then pass to the factory, more often than not in a state of advanced fermentation. That at least is a certainty. Under the microscope, Chinese honey is recognised amongst thousands: it is a carpet of yeast cells (see photographs).
4. At the factory the fermentation is chemically halted, which is then followed with the mixing process using suitable industrial syrups. Whenever necessary, a de-humidification process is applied, ensuring that a product with a lower than 19% water content results. According to the specialists it is this process that results in the considerable Iron (Fe) residues that are then found.
5. Afterwards, the "honey" is transferred from the tanks and placed into the famous non-alimentary bonded barrels ready for exportation. It is for this reason that the European laboratories are regularly surprised by the homogeneity of the Chinese "honey", at least with those that concern the parameters that are regularly checked( regarding adulteration)

These deductions result from the diverse cross-checking. There has not been of course, any independent commission of inquiry on the spot with the authority to make the necessary observations. Points 2, 3 and 5 are proved. Points 1 and 4 are the evidence from certain detailed techniques still to be confirmed.

From information in our possession, the possibility of honey adulteration, non-detectable by the techniques in place at the relevant time (researched in the annexes of the directive 74/409), runs from the middle of the 1970’s and corresponds to the commercialisation of High Fructose Corn Syrup (H.F.C.S.). It was the first time that industry was able to produce a sweetener so close to that of honey. It was to protect against the risk of trafficking, that White and Doner put in place and published in 1978, the method based on the quantity of Carbon 13 in honey. That was sufficient, so it seemed, to discourage the fraudsters at that time, who did not have techniques at their disposal other than the most crude, such as simple mixing( without any product transformation).When China, absent until this moment in time, arrived onto the world market, taking into account the characteristics of their "honey", suspicions were immediate.

From this moment in time the American administration did not hesitate, in placing, on honey, an interventionist policy. For example and for the memory, in 1994 Chinese honey was hit by a Custom’s Importation tax of 140%. Last year, an appreciably different mechanism, a total blockage for a certain length of time, on the imports coming from this country.

The Chinese policy regarding that of honey is not one arrived at by chance. All those who have approached the subject and wished to speak, affirm to having found an organised scientifically planned and evolving fraud. It wrestles to become the master in the world market, and it is not the producers of the importing countries that are targeted, but the direct competitors, that is to say the other exporting countries. Honey is a small product, certain, and the mass financially modest, but globally, the stakes, functioning under the same mechanism are petroleum, coffee, cacao etc… .Once one is the leader, quasi monopolistic, one has the free hand, with allowing circumstances, to embark on speculative operations, into the heights as well as the depths. In this manner gathering as much profit as possible since the merchandise placed on the market is nothing more than a pale substitute produced at artificially low costs.

In front of such a situation, and taking into account the total absence of any reaction from the controlling authorities, the competitors had only one alternative: to use the same procedures, or be eliminated.

This is exactly what has happened.

On one side, the producers of many traditional exporting countries, discouraged by such a low price "gave up" at the first difficulty (sanitary problems, poor climatic conditions etc…as recently in Chiapas).

On the other side, the co-operatives and the industrial exporters, rather than disappear, were tempted to resort to the same procedures as used by the Chinese. Due to this manner, importers realised that, even after testing, practically any exporting country could trick them. They has thus noted some falsified honey lots originating from: Argentina, Mexico, Guatemala, Turkey and above all Hungary, which appears with it’s Acacia honey, the most tempted country to imitate China. It needs to be said that this involves only one or two marginal operators in each country and the amplitude of the phenomena, happily is without measure when compared to the fraudulent industry of the Chinese.

A chance in our misfortune: Russia, (one of the leading world exporters during the 1970’s), totally disorganised, no longer has the ability to send its "honey". The day where its’ exporting infrastructure once again becomes operational, it is hoped that Europe organises a little better than today. Without being over emphatic, if there is no movement from those in charge, honey, exalted by the Pharaohs, glorified by the bible, risks, to be no more than for our children a distant souvenir, a myth and definitely not a treat at the breakfast table.

On the wholesale market, the price is expressed in Francs or in Dollars (before V.A.T. and any customs’ tax) by kilo or by tonne, packed into barrels of 300 kg, transport and packaging included. In retail transactions, for the consumer, prices are in francs, per kilo, and include the Value Added Tax.

Contrary to the grand majority of other international markets, the honey market is totally disorganised. The term "anarchic" would be a term that suits the situation. The habitual fluctuations associated with the imbalances between offers and the demands are not damped down or absorbed by any regulating mechanism. Happily, the product may be conserved with little problem in conditions that demand low financial input. Thus, it is the producers themselves or their co-operatives that assure the minimum of regulation.

After the Second World War, the rate of exchange for the French Franc was stable for a long period of time. Fortunately, even though there were few new businesses put in place, the increases in productivity allowed existing beekeepers to survive. At the beginning of the 1970’s the trend to return to nature and "natural products" commenced. The direct consequence was a deficit in the amount of honey being offered to the market, and in less than a year the price on the world market had tripled. We were in 1974, and in the previous 30 years there had been practically no new Beekeeping businesses. During the following years many young people saw the chance to become beekeepers, most coming from the towns, attracted by the "country way of life". At this time there was a waiting list of 2 or 3 years for a place on a training course in Beekeeping, as all places were taken. At the beginning of the 1980’s, prices turned around the value of 1000$ per tonne, whilst the Franc continued to increase in value, reaching a high of 10.50 FF. to the $.

This was the moment that the Chinese flooded the world market, whilst at the same time the $.slumped.

At its’ lowest level, in 1993-1994, the cheapest Chinese honey( even amongst Chinese honeys there is a range!) fell to less than 700 $. A tonne, which represented at the time, transport, customs tax and all other charges being included honey at less than 5.00 FF./ kg. At the same time, French honey was being purchased at around 6.00 FF. Compared with the 1986 price of 11.00 FF(constant values), that represented a fall of 50%. Evidently, the monofloral and rarer honeys followed the same trend: a 60% fall for such honeys as Lavender (according to A.D.A.P.I.). European Beekeeping has paid the price.

During the last 4 years, world prices have shot up and down, directly influencing the price paid to the European beekeeper. Last year quality honey( Argentinean) was being sold at a price of 2200 $ per tonne. Today it commands a price of less than 1220 $.The Chinese "honey" arrived at 1700 $ and now is at a level of between 900 $. and 1000 $.

These upsets, which are not due to natural causes, are for everybody, very difficult to control, the conditioners in particular. Beekeepers, they are for many years used to it!

As a result of the pre-mentioned activities, there exists no base line from which to work.

A recent audit by the G.E.M., asked for by the Ministry of Agriculture, revealed that at the summit of the market during 1997, the average beekeeper, was paid at just the minimum legal salary level Taking into account the skills and investments required this totally insufficient, One does not have too look too far, the near. total absence during the last 10 years of any new businesses says it all.

In several countries throughout the world, including those with low labour cost such as Mexico, Beekeeping and the production of honey stagnates or is in regression. Beside this two false ideas circulate:

• Honey is too expensive
• There is no honey to be found on the world market.

This situation begs belief!

Effectively, and evidence shows, that between 1000 $ and 2000 $ per tonne, one has and will have greater and greater difficulty in finding true honey on the world market. The solution is very simple: it would be sufficient for the market to propose a price between 2000$ and 3000$ per tonne. At this level of remuneration, there would be no lack of producers to provide a product with a quality beyond reproach.

One is, for the moment , in a vicious circle:

• the price is too low, therefore the production decreases
• the buyers find it difficult to provide the market
• the fraudsters, always ready to profit from easy and underhand activities "fabricate" the substitute using techniques they adapt as necessary to avoid detection by the controlling laboratories.

Regarding Europe, a price for the producer below

• 12 to 14 FF per kg. for the more abundant honeys (Rape, Sunflower, Low plain Blossom honey)
• 15 to 60 FF per kg for the scarcer types (Acacia, Sweet Chestnut, Pine, Lavender, Heather etc…)

it is a dream to imagine that young beekeepers will accept the risk of setting up in business.

Now, if consumers are ready to pay the correct price for quality, they are not ready to be hoodwinked. It is therefore a need for the market to clean-up its’ act so that everybody, producer, conditioner and the consumer gets what is truly deserved.

For this, it simply requires a minimum of political will so that, under the designation "HONEY", there is nothing to be found in the pots except honey.(if, as well, the label is sufficiently clear and truthful with information that relates to the geographical and floral origins, even better).