Black specks in honey

[Susan Gregory]

I have a question for any beekeeper that can answer. I purchased honey for the first time from a beekeeper. He said it was extracted at one of the area's bee supply stores. Just opened the bucket and there are black specks all around the inside rim of the bucket and all over the top to the honey (100s of them). There was one dead ant stuck between the bucket rim top and the lid. The other specks range from the size of a half ant to very small, but I don't think they are ant parts. Is this normal? If so, what are the specks?

 

Should I try to scrape off the top of the honey or just eat it the way it is? If I do scrape, would it be better to do while the honey is cold and thick, or should I put it in the sun and let it heat up first? Not sure what would work best and not sure the best way to scrape or filter.

[Susan Gregory]

After trying to strain the specks out unsuccessfully, I am returing the honey to the beekeeper. He said he had no idea what the speck could be--maybe when he sees them he will have an idea. So I don't need help about how to strain or scrape off, but if anyone knows what these specks could be, I'd be interested in learning what you think they could be.

[Gregg Batt]

My guess is that it very well could be flecs of material from the extractor. I have seen small bits of metal etc from wear that I have worried about getting in the honey. Could be from extraction!

 

Gregg Batt

Syracuse High School

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From: webe...@googlegroups.com [webe...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Susan Gregory [2susan....@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2012 7:15 PM
To: webe...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Black specks in honey

[Nathan Hall]

I have a bucket of the same honey and it has all the little black pieces in it. I've been eating it without any problems. It has something to do with the plants the bees collected from. I know that those bees were on sweet corn and I've seen it in other corn honey as well. If it really bothers you, you can wait till it gets warm again and strain it through a finer filter or some nylons, cheese cloth etc. 

Nate

Sent from my iPhone

[Vic Bachman]

The honey is not ultra filtered like you would buy in a store. The specs are just pollen, most pure honey will have specs floating on the top after it sits for a while. The pollen will float to the top of the bucket and usually moves over to the sides and can look kind of strange but it is perfectly fine.

[b young]

I don’t know what I did wrong... when I extracted my honey, I did not get
any black specks in the honey or the screens I used to filter out the big
wax parts. my neighbors told me that they could see a lot of bees in their
corn as well as the other plants.. I know the girls brought back a lot of
pollen, it was fun to sit and watch them do so and watch it build up in the
cells between inspections. if the specks are possibly corn pollen, I don’t
know what I did wrong as to not get any, I did get a tiny amount of wax
through the screens but no black. unless you spun it hard enough to get
some bee bread out of the cells, the pollen should not be visible. or at
least it is not visible in mine. I watched the pollen coming in and it was
orange, white, gray, and all colors in between, but not black, or at least
I never saw black coming in or packed in the cells.

maybe you should have some of the specks collected and look under a
microscope, or maybe there is some other test that can be done to determine
the origin.

boyd young

-----Original Message-----
From: Vic Bachman
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 8:12 PM
To: webe...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Black specks in honey