The taste of honey will vary by the source. Honey from orange blossoms will taste different than honey from clover, etc. I like wildflower honey. But, if there is a Whole Foods store near you, I would suggest going there. They have very large containers of various honeys, and you can dispense a bit onto your finger to taste, to see if you like it. If you find one you like, they provide various sized containers (some are little ”bears”) that you then fill and take to the register.

Ditto on wildflower honey having a great taste. I try to buy honey from local beekeepers. Occasionally I will splurge on this honey from Germany when I'm lucky enough to find it https://langnese-honey.us.com/blog/product_series/pure-bee-honey/

Honey lover from way back here. I tend to prefer wildflower honey too - and I buy unfiltered organic from Aldi and Trader Joe's. It's usually not much more costly than the regular types - and sometimes less than the 'fancy' ones.

Buckwheat and palmetto honey are a couple I really like, but harder to find.

And as for those generic bears, you need to read labels carefully. They've been shown to be adulterated in some instances - cut with corn or sugar syrup.

And you may have someone in your area selling their own local honey. I've often seen those folks at farmers markets.

I second carolb's suggestion of finding local honey. Beekeepers are EVERYWHERE. Post on FB or Next door or farmer's markets, ask friends and neighbors. I have a good friend who keeps and rotates her hives in organic fruit and berry orchards in our area. The honey is fabulous. I won't buy honey packed in plastic.

Definitely local honey. So many to choose from.

You can get raw, unfiltered wildflower honey at ordinary Kroger. No need to make a special trip someplace else.

I buy local honey, usually wildflower, but occasionally find wonderful honey when I travel, ie acacia honey from Italy and macadamia or lychee honey from Kauai.

Ditto to trying to find local honey. It is fairly easy to find by the pint or even quart jars around here. Publix even carries local (Alabama made) products, including honey and some mom and pop restaurants sell it. And of course during the growing season, Farmer’s markets always have it. I don’t know what the source would be from TJ or Aldi, probably not local but whatever qualifies as ’organic’ when it comes to honey.

I try to buy from farmers' markets.

If you have allergies, eating local honey is supposed to help prevent them, and this is another reason to buy local honey. I do not eat enough honey for this to help, however. I think wildflower honey is the most effective against allergies, but here we get a lot of orange blossom honey because there are so many orange trees here.

@jay foursee, if you learn about beekeeping, you will find that beekeepers do not risk their colonies by taking all or too much of their winter food. Beekeeping has probably done more to strengthen bee colonies in this time of colony collapse and other vulnerabilities (much caused by using pesticides) than anything else. Beekeepers love every one of their bees! A really great book is The Bee Bus about a beekeeper in California and his granddaughter who carries on his beekeeping. I learned so much and it's a lovely, well written book.

If you are near a Sam's Club, they carry a raw and organic honey. It's very good. If you have farmer's market type stores in your area, they always have local honey. Even the grocery stores will have some local honeys. I did notice that when I was going to buy the Raw honey at Walmart that I normally get there, they did not have a very good selection of honey(shelves were wiped out) AND they did not have the one that I have been buying there for years! UGH! We buy from a local person at the flea market but it's off season now and we ran out of the good stuff. I also agree about ALDI, they have an OK honey there too. It is labeled that it is "REAL" honey. In fact, I will have to make a trip to ALDI to get some of their honey.

Heard years ago if you buy local honey it helps the body fight local air borne allergens. I've never had trouble finding a local brand on a grocery shelf.

Not a fan of Walmart's own branded organic honey. I stopped buying it because it had a funky, unpleasant aroma to it 😕

Thank you all!

Lindsey -- I like the idea that I could 'taste first' at a Whole Foods.

DGS's honey should be labeled Backyards of Chicagoland Organic. He had one hive at first, then two, and he bright two up to our backyard another year. Summer 2023 he had two hives when first one, then a second colony settled into trees in his backyard. Is there a Bee Travel Network?

The first year he and his DS set up a sidewalk stand in front of their house. She baked cupcakes and he put out his Ball canning jars of honey. It was fun, and he has been quite serious about learning about bees and caring for his. I'm very proud of my DS for encouraging and working with DGS to see these 'fancies' through. You should see the Taj Mahal of hives that they built for the first colony!

Hate to tell you, but it's probably not organic if it's from the backyards of Chicagoland. People use organic and synthetic chemicals all over the place in Chicagoland. Bees usually aren't too picky about if the chemicals we use are organic or synthetic.

I too, only buy local honey. I had not bought any for about a year, and wow the price has gone up. Even the cheap bears. Just like everything else I guess. I like honey for hot tea in the winter.

beesneeds -- You're right. Tell me how anyone can say their honey IS 'organic'. Bees go everywhere! Would you please explain your special connection to them? (Your name here.)

Hmm - that is food for thought, chisue.

Here's 1 answer:

"Whats The Deal With Organic Honey?

As of 2021, honey cannot be certified organic by the USDA. Any honey Certified Organic honey sold in the United States is imported from other countries and certified organic by that country. The imported organic honey is not certified Organic by the United States.

The USDA recognizes other countries’ organic certification, so if it’s good enough for the other countries’ government, it’s good enough for the US. Hopefully, you can see the potential problem with this. Especially because most of the organic honey comes from Brazil. And Brazil has had a lot of issues with bribery and fraud in their government.

A US beekeeper or company can have non-certified organic, pure honey that is raised organically. But it is nearly impossible to produce organic honey that can qualify for an organic label from the USDA. This applies to all

Also, US beekeepers are currently unable to make any organic claims for their own honey. Beekeepers are not allowed to make any organic claims unless the USDA says they can. Is the government going to drop the hammer on the guy at the farmers market saying they have organic raw honey? Probably not, but those are the rules....

How Is Organic Honey Made?

Honeybees forage from flowers naturally, and they will go to any flower producing the best nectar. This can be a flower 3 miles from their colony or 30 yards. They want to make the most of their time and energy. Both organic and inorganic flowers are visited by the bees. So it is not possible to get bees to skip inorganic flowers.

The only option that beekeepers have to force their bees to visit organic flowers is to place the colony in a location that has 100% organic flowers in the area. Only then is the honey produced from those flowers organic.

Organic Honey From A Wild Area

A beekeeper can either build their apiary (group of beehives) in a location that does not use any type of synthetic herbicides or pesticides to care for their plants. The beekeepers need to be sure the surrounding 5 miles on all sides of the colonies are free of these synthetic chemicals. This is a large area and difficult to do in the United States, but it can be done in other rural areas of the world.

The surrounding 5 miles will need to be free of these chemicals because honey bees will travel up to 5 miles in search of nectar, pollen, and water. A beekeeper cannot control where their bees go once they leave the colony, so it’s important for the beekeeper to know the surrounding area if they are wanting to sell certified organic honey.

Migratory Organic Honey

The other option for the beekeeper is to move the colony to an area that has an organically certified farm or a farm that does not use any synthetic pesticides or herbicides. Honeybee colonies can be physically moved around and transported on a truck from farm to farm across the country. This is how most of the world’s pollination of fruits and vegetables occurs.

The trouble with moving a colony to an organic farm or similar site is the farm may not produce enough nectar or pollen for the bees to eat and survive on year around. When this happens, the colony would need to be transported to another place where they can survive. The beekeeper will need to feed the bees an organically acceptable corn syrup or sugar water feed for the colony to live on.

Honey bees bounce from flower to flower, pulling nectar and collecting pollen from each flower. Day in and day out, they forage for these ingredients,

To move the colony to the farm, the beekeeper would need to prepare the equipment for the bees to store the honey in. These are called supers or honey boxes by beekeepers. Once the colony is moved to the organic farm, the beekeeper would place these empty boxes on the colony for the bees to store their honey. As soon as the bees cannot store additional honey in the boxes because the nectar has stopped, the beekeeper would then remove the full honey boxes and harvest them.

By doing it this way, the beekeeper would know the honey in those boxes came from that farm, and they cannot be contaminated by another source of nectar that may not be organic.

This is actually how varietals of honey is made. If a beekeeper wants to make Tupelo Honey or Fireweed Honey, the beekeeper will move the colonies to where those plants are about to bloom. Then once the source of nectar they are targeting for honey stops blooming, the boxes are harvested...."

https://blog.foxhoundbeecompany.com/the-truth-about-organic-honey/

The Honey Bus has a good description of this; the beekeeper keeps his hives in the wild areas of CA where there is no development and has to drive many miles to care for his (and now her) colonies. I mentioned above my good friend keeps her hives in organic fruit and berry orchards. I can't recall if it was in The Honey Bus or where I read it, but they said that the practice of transporting bees to commercial agricultural areas (like to apple or cherry orchards) is harmful to the bees because a diet of a single crop is not healthy for them. Many apple orchards in WA are now covering the whole orchards with netting to protect their crops from cross pollinating and from pests. The bees are released inside the netting tents to pollinate the fruit.

Which is kind of my point. Just read the labels. If you can buy wild unfiltered honey in Kroger... who is the gatekeeper? Well let's don't stop there, just because somebody sells local honey doesn't mean it's actually local honey? I gave up going to the farmers market in downtown Nashville because they sell all sorts of stuff there. Not just Nashville Farmers' produce. There's so little that regulates anything

Our farmer's market really does a good job of making sure the vendors are local. The only exception are 2 fruit stands that are allowed to bring in fruit from Eastern Washington, which is a huge fruit growing region with lots of fruit that cannot be grown in Western WA because we don't have a hot enough climate.

Not my point. Who regulates anything, locally or regionally, or nationally? Pretty sure nobody really does these days

carolb (carol-bee!) -- Good read. Thank you.

Since I'm now feeding two Elderly People, "organic" isn't a high priority for me. It's pretty late to think there would be a huge advantage -- in addition to the obviously fuzzy realities around certification. Even "Local" is hard to establish.

I buy a LOT of honey because lemonade made with honey is the main non-water drink in this household. I buy all kinds from lots of stores to change things up. If we're driving in the country and see local honey for sale, I buy that -- not because it's local, (It's not local to us.) but because we like to support small businesses. There is a local honey here in NYC sold at Union Square Farmer's Market that is hyper-local, by neighborhood, with apiaries on various rooftops. But at $25 for 9 ounces, it's a little too rich for my blood. My biggest honey splurge is a bottle of Mike's Hot Honey which I enjoy on pizza.

There was a woodlot at the back of Dad's farm and a man from a local village put several hives of bees there.

When I was a child prior to and during World War II he used to give us honey, which tasted good to this non-connoiseur. If his bees ever told him what kind of flowers they visited, he didn't tell us, as far as I know.

As for the "organic", there were far fewer chemicals spewed around the landscape in those days.

ole joyfuelled ... who loves honey as fuel occasionally

One of our local honey companies has 3 varieties based on where the hives are kept. It is really interesting to taste the 3 as they are different. I always buy the mountain honey since it takes over a year (some say years) to crystallize and doesn't taste as sweet.