Yup. Honey has antibacterial qualities that have been harnessed for a very long time.

I would throw it out, but that's more because of an ick factor for me than a safety one. I think it would be perfectly safe to eat, but I couldn't do it.

I would totally enjoy the honey with no hesitation whatsoever. Be sure that you do a good counter clean up (I suggest using vinegar.) to eliminate the scent path left behind by the ants to signal a source of food.

I wouldn't.

If in doubt, throw it out.

It wouldn't even occur to me to throw it out.

eat it! Still yummy. If you scoop the ants out, you miss a tiny portion of protein. ;)

I would eat it too! Toss those ants and enjoy! :)

Yes I would. The viscosity of the honey is sufficient to contain any contamination after you scoop the ants out. Besides, most of us are consuming ant products in the form of coloring every week- look up carmine and cochineal online. Honey has bees crawling over it incessantly... who knows where they've been! Just kidding- we are way too uptight about bugs.

I would remove the ants first, but I'd eat the honey. Or...I'd cap the honey and set it on the shelf because I don't use a lot of honey, and then it would get all crystalized, and then when it was a question of getting it hot enough to melt and not recrystalize without making the whole world sticky, I might remember the ants and chuck it instead. But if I needed honey today, I'd use it once I de-anted it.

The antibacterial effects of honey are documented. More importantly, ants are cleaner than a lot of things you might consider proper food.

A search led me to this page on the Mayo Clinic's website. For a long list of possible uses, their view is that evidence of antibacterial or other effects of honey is unclear/lacking.

Insufficient evidence

And yet, on that same Mayo Clinic site you linked to Snidely: The antibacterial effects of honey are well-known. Research has been done on the role of honey in long-term wound management, as well as the treatment of ulcers, burns, Fournier's gangrene (a life-threatening bacterial infection), and diabetes. However, more high-quality studies are needed to make firm conclusions on the use of honey.

So it seems more correct to state that the antibacterial effects of honey are known, but the results for its use for antibacterial uses on the human body are not as clear.

Good heavens! Such diseases! I was talking about for ordinary boo-boos! Check the abstract from NIH, which agrees and suggests the mechanisms: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3609166/

You can buy medical grade "wound honey". Neosporin might work better, but some people can't use it.

Yes, I saw all that, I read all the pages. The reason why I offered the link (instead of cut/paste an abstract) was to make it easy for others to look it over. They give a long list of proposed conditions some have suggested honey may be useful in treated and conclude for all of them that there is inadequate supporting evidence for ANY of them.

How I read it is they suggest that a conclusion of effectiveness for anything on the long list (including many suggested uses were it antibacterial) is not supported by studies to date.

Pillog, that's not the work of the NIH.

The NIH has several websites (as a public service) that list all articles published in scientific journals. PubMed is the best known. What you've linked to is simply their searchable library catalog.

I can start selling medical grade Kool-Aid, the evidence supporting its effectiveness is comparable to that of honey.

So you're saying that that paper is fraudulent? I don't understand. Yes, it's not written by NIH, but it's from their website, which is what I meant. There is some bad science in journals, but I guess you're saying NIH posts them too? Do some more research. There are plenty of peer-reviewed papers if you don't like that one.

There is plenty of evidence of honey's antimicrobial properties in a lab, and also its efficacy on small cuts, which aren't even specified on the list you linked. What is currently being investigated is whether honey is effective in much more serious conditions.

Medical grade honey is filtered and purified for use on wounds. The raw honey you buy at the farmer's market is not. That's the meaning of the designation.

I actually did see one article (journalistic, not peer-reviewed) that supported your Kool-Aid claim. It was discussing how sugar works in this kind of situation.

As far as I know, honey is the only food that does not spoil. I would scoop out the ants and eat the honey.

No pillog, not at all. I'll try to explain.

There's a commercial service called Lexis Nexis. Maybe you've heard of it. If you're looking for instances when the words "wet Labrador dog" have appeared within 15 words of "party dress", you can do a search. You want to look in Canadian newspapers? Or Florida magazines? Or US Senate hearings? Or everywhere? Or transcripts of civil lawsuits in Eastern Washington state ? Etc, they have more material than you can imagine digitized, indexed, cross referenced, and ready to search. When you get a hit, the source is where it appeared, not Lexis Nexis.

This is the same. The NIH receives all even remotely relevant publications in the world. The info you see on that linked page has been entered into the publication catalog so that it can be found in searches. See where it says "Keywords"? Those are the words a search for which will include this article. The source is Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine. The NIH has nothing at all to do with it. It's not "from their website". It's from their index of everything, passed along with no opinion or review. They're saying It exists, nothing more.

Mayo Clinic rates wound healing benefits of honey as "C", saying it's "been used" but the evidence doesn't support positive results. Heck, dung has been used too in similar situations.

Kool Aid claim? I made it up, it's a coincidence. I first wrote "bananas" but changed it because sometimes in trying to be funny by exaggerating my words have been found to be offensive. Yes, self-censorship of a sort.

Lois, it's perfectly okay for anyone to be squeamish about insects. Many people fear them, don't want anything to do with them. I get it!

If you are going to think about those ants every time you reach for the honey, toss it. But do know that there's no legitimate reason for doing so other than your personal feelings. Those feelings are legit!

Here's a nice little summary of how honey is made . The product in the jars at the grocery is not processed in any way, other than filtered, if desired. Honey, directly from the comb, is a clean product.

I had some close friends who had hives on their property. They sold mason jars of honey still in the comb, what a treat. There was never any bits and pieces of bees in their jars of pure or comb honey.

I wouldn't eat it. But as chi said, it'd be because of the ick factor. I'm sure that it would be perfectly safe, but I also agree with rhizo - I'd think about those ants every time I reached for the honey. I'm not overly squeamish, but ick.

I'd throw it out. Bugs just plain gross me out.

Honey isn't cheap around here and I wouldn't throw it out.

Snidely, you've posted one link to one site that says it doesn't have enough information to speak about intensive medical rather than first aid uses and decided that it disproves the base question of whether honey is antimicrobial. I have no interest in vetting journals for your delectation, but peer reviewed articles are out there and you can find them yourself.

I think it's bizarre that NIH would even index articles that weren't from reputable journals but having no knowledge on it, I'll accept that you don't care for that one.

I knew you made up the Kool-Aid. I thought it was a joke! But apparently they're investigating whether topical application of sugar can be antibacterial, so they likely have some preliminary indication that there's something worth the bother. I'd think that the dyes and flavorings of Kool-Aid wouldn't be desirable, medically, but since it's mostly sugar, it should do in a pinch.

I would throw it away and buy a new jar.

pillog, the words here are important. What the site says, and what I tried to relate, is their view is that there is insufficient evidence to draw any conclusion. That goes both ways. Consistent evidence of an antibacterial effect has not been demonstrated. Nor has it been shown to be consistently ineffective. Have no opinion.

Here's a brief buzz on what PubMed is. Think of the catalog at the Library of Congress. You do a search for "Battle of Bull Run". You find they have 200 books. Does the fact that they have them signify an endorsement? No. Are they saying that what's in these books is correct and accepted? No. If it's in the catalog, they're just saying that they exist. Nothing more.

Brief explanation of PubMed

(PS - research project results are published for the explicit reason of sharing what was found and enticing others to prove or disprove the result. Depending on the field, and the researcher, proof and disproof both happen regularly. That's why when a research conclusion is supported by only a few concurring reports, it's viewed as being unsubstantiated and lacking in evidence at that point. )

I would eat it! Hey, have you ever had chocolate covered ants? Delicious!

If it didn't make the ants sick, what's the problem? :-)

Jeff, LOL

I'd eat it. I'd be more afraid of people nasties than ants.

When I was growing up in the city, I wouldn't go near it. After decades living in the country I'd scoop out the ants and proceed as usual. I don't eat much honey these days, so by the time I got back to it the ants would probably have been a distant memory.

honey has very little protein but ants are mostly protein..so up your protein intake by eating both.

Might be different if you were talking about these ants:

Giant Predatory Ants

I guess that this might not be the right time to bring up the fact that the USDA allows for a certain level of....stuff...in all of our foods. Insect parts (all kinds of parts), and rodent hairs (and other pieces and parts) are expected and allowable in most everything you eat every single day.

pillog, don't forget who you're arguing with. The resident authority on everything.

Sugar and/or honey do work as wound dressings.

http://www.veterinarypracticenews.com/The-Sweet-Side-of-Managing-Open-Wounds/

Thank you all.....I have really enjoyed reading your posts. For now it is in the fridge.

Lois

It would never occur to me to throw out good honey in this circumstance. The ants had only just discovered the honey. There were only a few in the honey. Had I found *flies* and couldn't remove all they might have touched (laid eggs on)...out she goes.

While I didn't go hungry as a child, there wasn't food to waste.