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Does pasteurization of honey kill Clostridium botulinum?

The idea that honey should be pasteurized is truly odd. Honey has been used for centuries to dress wounds because of its antibacterial properties, and yet some people want to pasteurize it as if it might cause disease. Honey virtually never goes bad because it provides an inhospitable environment for most pathogens, yet some people want it cleaner.

Clostridium botulinum is a very common soil-borne organism that doesn’t cause problems for humans unless it is allowed to grow and produce toxins. This happens occasionally in low-acid (medium to high pH) foods that are not properly processed. Clostridium botulinum favors anaerobic conditions with a pH of about 4.6 or greater, so it sometimes is found in home-canned jars of fish, beans, mushrooms, and low-acid tomatoes.

As it turns out, the spores of Clostridium botulinum can survive in honey, but they can’t germinate, grow, or produce toxin in the highly acidic and extremely hygroscopic environment of honey. The spores just stay in the spore form. If we eat them, they go through us just as they would if they were stuck on a carrot or potato. The spores are everywhere and not a threat to humans with two exceptions—infants and individuals with compromised immune systems.

Very young children, usually during the first few months of life, have an underdeveloped intestine that sometimes allows Clostridium botulinum spores to grow within the gut and produce toxins. The condition is quite rare, but it most frequently happens after the ingestion of honey. The infant digestive system matures early and within a few months, the spores will pass straight through a child just as they do in an adult. Although the vulnerable stage is short, to be on the safe side, it is recommended that parents wait until a child is at least one year old before feeding honey.

Some people believe that if the honey is pasteurized it will be safe to give to infants. Nothing could be further from the truth. Pasteurization does nothing to botulism spores. Nothing.

Both the actual Clostridium botulinum bacteria and the toxins it produces are easily destroyed by boiling for several minutes or by holding them at lower temperatures for longer times. The spores, on the other hand, are extremely resistant. Pressure cooking at 250° F (121° C) for three minutes will kill the spores, as will other combinations of temperature, pressure, time, and acidity. At standard pressures, it could take hours of boiling to kill them.

But honey is pasteurized at much lower temperatures. Most sources I found recommended heating the honey to 145° F (63° C) for 30 minutes. Some preferred 150° (65.5° C) for 30 minutes. One suggested that the temperature be brought to 170° F (77° C) momentarily. In this environment, Clostridium botulinum spores are going to take off their little t-shirts and luxuriate in the sauna-like conditions.

The only thing that pasteurization does to honey is destroy many of the nuanced flavors and aromas, as well as many of the phytochemicals, antioxidants, and nutrients. In other words pasteurization degrades the product yet provides no clear benefit.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Does your honey have that new-car smell?

I have been avoiding this post­­­­ largely because it speaks more to personal preference than stone-cold logic. Still, I was asked my opinion, so here it is.

I go to great effort to keep plastic out of my hives. First off, I can think of nothing natural about plastic, so if you are practicing so-called “natural” beekeeping, it makes sense to stay away from it.

Plastics are made from petroleum. The chemicals used to improve the flexibility and durability of plastic materials are called plasticizers. Plasticizers are nasty chemicals that tend to evaporate from plastic products as they age or leach into liquids that are contained within them—including food and drink.

The plastic becomes brittle and stiff as the plasticizers leave, and the surrounding materials pick up the smell and taste of the plasticizers. That “new car smell” or “new shower curtain smell” is the perfume of plasticizers. Worse, the migration of chemical seems to happen faster in warm or acidic environments—think beehive.

Some people are more sensitive to the flavor of leaching plastic than others. In blind taste tests, I can easily pick out honey that has been stored in plastic, and I’m sure other people can as well. Believe me, it is not pleasant.

Over my beekeeping years, I have tried to give plastics a chance. I have tried plastic foundation, plastic drone frames, plastic feeders, and plastic sections. But I have moved as far away from plastic as I can. When I open a beehive on a hot day I want to smell wax and honey and brood and nectar—not plastic.

Now if I use any foundation at all, I use wax. I’ve replaced plastic drone frames with homemade wooden ones, I’ve gone back to wooden section boxes, and I try to avoid feeding syrup by keeping plenty of honey on hand. Sometimes I feed pollen patties or candy cakes, but I stay away from liquid feed because of the plastic issue. (Although I admit to using the occasional baggie feeder when I’m out of other options.)

So there you have it—plastic-free beekeeping has become an obsession with me. I can understand those who feel differently because plastic is convenient, cheap, and readily available. Nevertheless, if you are selling honey to those who are interested in organic, natural, treatment-free, or environmentally friendly products, plastic-fantastic honey might not be the best choice.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Cooking with honey

How much honey does your average beekeeper eat? I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t eat that much. Probably more than the average American, but still not much. When I do eat honey, I like it plain and still in the comb. A little cheese doesn’t hurt either.

So when people ask me for recipes, I’m at a loss. For me, when honey is heated or mixed with other ingredients, it losses its identity. Although it still tastes like honey, it doesn’t taste like tupelo, or gallberry, or maple. When cooked, it seems to lose the thing I like best about it—the regional flavor, the contributing flowers, the subtle shift that makes your own honey the best in the world.

What gets me excited is that first taste of a honey I’ve never tried. I am always up for a new varietal or a new regional honey. The flavors are especially strident when compared side-by-side with a honey I’m used to. To me, that is the real joy of eating it.

That’s not to say I never cook with honey. I have a barbecue sauce recipe that requires heaps of buckwheat honey—I’m sure buckwheat wouldn’t lose its molasses flavor if you boiled it for a week, so that one works for me. I also like a balsamic vinegar and honey salad dressing, but in all honestly, the balsamic takes over and the honey is just the sweet part.

Now, I’m certainly not saying you shouldn’t cook with honey. I’m just explaining why I don’t have a little tab up there with recipes for humans. (The recipes up there are all for bees.)

But if it’s recipes you want, try The National Honey Board. They have lots of free recipes, usage and storage tips, recipe conversion guidelines, hints on baking with honey, honey FAQs, and even nutrition information. If anyone knows how to handle honey in the kitchen, it the folks at the Honey Board. Give them a try.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

What is first-rinse water?

When you write a post and ten people write back and say, “What the heck are you talking about?” you know you screwed up. So, what the heck is first-rinse water, why do you keep in the fridge, and why would you even bother? Sorry, sorry. My bad.

After beekeepers crush and strain honeycomb, they like to save the wax for other uses such as making candles, cosmetics, lotions, soaps, or whatever. The first thing you have to do is clean the wax to get rid of all the honey that is still sticking to it.

Honey readily dissolves in water, so you can wash the wax by pouring clean water over it and swishing it around for a while until most of the honey dissolves. Once you are done, the water you drain from the wax is strongly flavored with honey. The less water you use, the stronger the flavor.

Instead of pouring it down the drain, you can save this flavored water and use it in cooking. It can be used in place of plain water in things like bread, muffins, cakes, applesauce, tea, stir fries, salad dressings, or any recipe that calls for both water and a sweetener. It gives the food the necessary sweetness and just a hint of honey flavor. Being the frugal type, I can’t bear to throw this stuff away . . . just think how many bee lives it took to produce it.

Now, to properly rinse your beeswax, you will probably change the water several times. Only the water from the first rinse will be sweet enough to notice, so it is the only water worth keeping. It is what I called “first-rinse water” in yesterday’s post.

Since honey dissolved in water can grow yeast and mold, I store the rinse water in a lidded jar in the refrigerator where it will easily keep for several weeks. If you want to keep it longer you could freeze it in an ice cube tray and then put the cubes in a freezer bag.

By the way, some of these ideas came originally from HB at Backyard Bee Hive Blog. HB is a beekeeper and cooking school instructor with some yummy ideas. Her blog is loaded with beekeeping advice and recipes she developed for using her own home-grown honey. Be sure to check it out.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

The secret of purple honey

Back in August, Aubrey from central North Carolina asked if I had any experience with purple honey. Specifically, he wanted to know what makes it purple.

Although I have no personal experience, the idea of purple honey has fascinated me for years. Like a lot of folks, I first heard about it in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. In that book there is a brief reference to purple honey and blueberries. In truth, it seems that purple honey only appears in the southeastern states, that it appears mostly in dry years, that it accumulates in only some hives, and that the amount produced is usually limited to a few frames or a partial box.

Many people claim that bees eating the fruit of blueberries, blackberries, or elderberries causes the color. Although bees are known to occasionally sip on ripe fruit (see below), beekeepers who have harvested purple honey claim that no berries were ripe when the purple honey was produced.

Others claim that specific soil conditions affect the nectar of some plants causing it to turn purple, and other people write that, “bees have to work the blooms in a certain order in the make the honey purple.” Without some science to back them up, I can’t accept these conjectures either.

I tend to side with the folks who say that purple honey comes from the flowers of the kudzu plant. For starters, kudzu and purple honey (sometimes called blue honey) share a geographical distribution in the southeast, whereas blueberries and elderberries are found everywhere. Also, purple honey is said to taste like grape jam and smell like grape soda—descriptions that are often applied to kudzu flowers as well.

Furthermore, kudzu seems not to be a favorite of honey bees. But in dry years—especially during a summer dearth—the bees will forage on it to a limited extent. This comports with the fact that purple honey is most often collected in years of drought and never collected in large quantities. As I mentioned in several recent posts, honey bees often do well on invasive species, many of which have multiple advantages over native ones. With few natural enemies to weaken the invasives, they often thrive under conditions where the natives fail—and the honey bees are quick to notice.

I’m sure someone has done a pollen analysis of purple honey to determine its floral source, but I haven’t been able to find one. In the meantime, I place my bets on the kudzu and I eagerly await my first taste of southern purple honey.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Kudzu vine in flower, the most likely source of purple honey.
Kudzu vine in flower, the most likely source of purple honey.
Bumble bee drinking peach juice during a fall nectar dearth. The bee left a small wet depression in the peach flesh.
Bumble bee drinking peach juice during a fall nectar dearth. The bee left a small wet depression in the peach flesh.