Honey is an absolutely delicious alternative to standard white sugar on everything. Not only is it sweet, it’s flavorful as well. You haven’t lived until you have had local, raw honey on a fresh biscuit. And it’s way better than regular honey.
Pure honey is made by honey bees is an easy addition to beverages and foods, and makes a real difference in the flavor of natural foods. Raw honey can also offer health benefits, such as healing wounds and fighting infections.
It can be confusing when buying honey as organic , raw, filtered, grade A, strained, and pure are all terms used to describe honey. But here we are, focusing on what organic honey from the farm is.
Honey is an absolutely delicious alternative to standard white sugar on everything. Not only is it sweet, it’s flavorful as well. You haven’t lived until you have had local, raw honey on a fresh biscuit. And it’s way better than regular honey.
Pure honey is made by honey bees is an easy addition to beverages and foods, and makes a real difference in the flavor of natural foods. Raw honey can also offer health benefits, such as healing wounds and fighting infections.
It can be confusing when buying honey as organic , raw, filtered, grade A, strained, and pure are all terms used to describe honey. But here we are, focusing on what organic honey from the farm is.
Table of Contents
What’s The Deal With Organic Honey? What’s The Deal With Organic Honey in The US? What Is Honey? Honey Board Definition "100% Pure Raw & Unfiltered Organic Honey" What Is Organic Honey? How Is Organic Honey Made? Organic Honey From A Wild Area Migratory Organic Honey Is Organic Honey Raw? How Can Honey Be Organic? Single Varietal And Wildflower Honey What Is Raw Honey? What Does Grade A Honey Mean? "Certified" Organic Honey The Legal Dilema The Moral Dilema But What About The USDA Certified Organic Honey At The Health Food Stores? What About The Beekeeper Down At The Farmer's Market? Is Raw Honey The Same As Organic Honey? A Beekeepers Take On Buying The Best Honey
What’s The Deal With Organic Honey?
Organic honey is a type of honey produced without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. To be considered organic, the bees must gather nectar from organic flowers, and the beekeeper must avoid using non-organic honey, sugar, synthetic mite treatments or antibiotics in their hives.
Synthetic pesticides or herbicides cannot be used on the hive itself or anywhere the bees will forage. This means no roundup or other similar weed killers can be used.
And keep in mind, bees can and do fly miles to forage. But how can honey be organic if bees can fly freely and gather nectar from non-organic flowers?
The answer lies in the regulations surrounding organic honey production. In the US, for example, organic hives must be located at least 5 miles away from areas where pesticides are used.
This means the hive cannot be near golf courses, residential areas, industries, or water contaminated with chemicals.
Bees need a large territory to collect nectar from organic flowers, and a single colony collects 250 pounds of nectar in a year, requiring around 100 million flowers. They then use this nectar to live and also turn it into honey.
So, what makes honey organic? The USDA Organic label is not a guarantee of quality, as small producers who make less than $5000 worth of organic honey in a year can use the label without inspection.
However, certified organic honey is made from the nectar of organic flowers, and the beekeeper must follow strict guidelines to ensure the honey is free from pesticide traces.
Is all honey organic? No, not all honey is organic. Actually, the vast majority of honey could not be classified as organic.
Raw honey, on the other hand, is honey that has not been heated above 105°F and contains bee pollen and other beneficial ingredients. Items naturally found in honey inside the hive.
Is organic honey worth it? While organic honey may be more expensive than regular honey, it offers several health benefits, including a lower risk of pesticide exposure and a higher content of beneficial compounds like flavonoids and phenolic acids.
But as I mention below, take that organic label with a grain of salt.
Manuka honey, for example, is a type of organic honey made from the nectar of the manuka bush and has antibacterial properties, though it is not always certified organic.
What’s The Deal With Organic Honey in The US?
As of 2025, the USDA cannot certify honey as organic. Any Certified Organic honey sold in the United States is imported from other countries and certified organic by the country of origin. The imported organic honey is not certified Organic by the United States. The US just accepts that label.
The USDA recognizes other countries’ organic certification, so if it’s good enough for the other countries’ governments, it’s good enough for the US. Maybe not the best practice to do that.
Hopefully, you can see the potential problem with this, especially since most of the organic honey comes from Brazil, which has had numerous issues with bribery and corruption in its government.
A US beekeeper or company can have non-certified organic, pure honey that is raised organically. However, it is nearly impossible to produce organic honey that can qualify for an organic label from the USDA. This applies to all beekeepers. In some parts of the country, that is possible. However, it must be possible and verifiable by the USDA.
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 approves them.
Is the government going to drop the hammer on the guy at the farmers' market, saying they have organic raw honey? Probably not, but that's the rule.
What Is Honey?
5th Grader Definition
Honey is made by bees from flowers. Bees collect nectar from flowers, and when they get back to their hive, they use their mouths like little straws to put the honey in the cells.
The bees then store this nectar in the beehive where it becomes honey.
Honey Board Definition
The National Honey Board defines honey as the natural sweet substance created by honey bees from the nectar of flowers and secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant-sucking insects on growing plants, which the bees gather and transform by combining with specific substances of their own that produce chemical properties that cause variations in the final product.
"100% Pure Raw & Unfiltered Organic Honey"
The Front of the Label
Let’s look at a real example—Some of the most popular honeys sold on Amazon are the organic honey from Carmichael’s Honey and Nate’s Honey.
The front of their labels read “Organic, 100% Pure, Raw & Unfiltered,” and it displays the USDA Organic seal.
They have great packaging and look like a high-quality product. There are many on Amazon, Whole Foods, and Costco just like this one.
Conflicting Origins and Confusion
However, when you look at the full listing and the back of the label, it becomes more difficult to understand. On the Amazon listing, the country of origin for the Carmichael honey is listed as New Zealand, but the label lists it as being from Brazil and Uruguay. The addition of being a product of New Zealand is likely an oversight, but it contributes to the confusion of buyers.
In reality, honey is imported by the barrel or tote from countries all over the world, then bottled in the U.S.—a common practice in the industry. Which there is nothing wrong with this.
While that’s entirely legal and we import material from other countries as well, when it comes to food, it gives the impression that the honey is American-made when it’s not. An example of this real or perceived deception is that the USDA Organic label and the True Source label are put on the front of the label.
Labeling Tricks and Tiny Fonts
Along with large letters about the quality of the honey being “Raw, Organic, Unfiltered, Unheated”, but the country of origin is written in very small letters on the back of the label on the very bottom. Extremely easy to miss as a consumer. Honey packers have the option to be forthright about their country of origin and can put it on the front of the label. This is common for a lot of foods, but with honey, the consumer typically wants their honey local or at least from the US and at a good price.
So it is not a good business decision to put the country of origin for the honey front and center on a honey label. So instead, it is put in font small enough to meet current labeling standards. Oftentimes, it is written in code such as product of MX or UY instead of Mexico and Uruguay.
In some cases, imported honey is blended from multiple countries, shipped thousands of miles, and passed through several layers of the supply chain before it ever reaches a shelf. None of this is disclosed in a meaningful way to the consumer, which is part of the larger issue around transparency in honey labeling. The current rules favor the producer and not the consumer.
Can the Pricing Really Work?
Amazon Fee Breakdown
This particular 1-pound jar of honey sells for $10.99. Based on Amazon’s current fee structure, the seller pays $7.19 in Amazon fees alone—$1.65 in referral fees, $0.99 in closing fees, and $4.55 for fulfillment. That leaves just $3.80 to cover all other business costs, including:
Purchasing the honey
Importing and transporting it from Brazil or Uruguay
Clearing customs
Bottling and packaging
Labor, storage, and equipment
Advertising spend
Handling damaged goods and returns
The U.S. Beekeeper Dilemma
Meanwhile, the lowest wholesale price for retail-grade honey produced in the United States is approximately $3.50 per pound, and that doesn’t include packaging. And that is if you are buying drums and totes of honey.
So if this product were made using U.S.-sourced honey, it would already be operating at a loss.
It is common for beekeepers to vent about the insanely low prices on honey being sold at Costco and other wholesale places. It is hard to compete with international honey.
This raises a valid question: How is it possible to sell imported, organic, raw honey from across the world for less than it costs to produce honey domestically? And what difference is this making for our US beekeepers?
The Role—and Limits—of Certifications
Many imported honeys carry well-known certifications such as USDA Organic, True Source Certified, QAI Organic, or ISO Lab Tested. These labels are designed to bring structure to the global honey supply chain, and in many cases, they do set helpful minimum standards.
However, it’s important to recognize that these certifications are not quality guarantees. They do not confirm that the honey in the jar is truly raw, unfiltered, unheated, free of adulterants, or even consistent with what most consumers think of as “organic.”
A Closer Look at Certification Programs
USDA Organic: verifies that the paperwork aligns with organic standards, but for imported honey, this depends heavily on foreign certifiers and declarations. It does not require pesticide residue testing, syrup adulteration testing, or antibiotic screening. It’s based on the honor system in countries that may have corruption, which is very common with honey.
True Source Certified is primarily a documentation audit that verifies the claimed country of origin. It does not test for purity or assess whether the honey is truly raw, organic or unfiltered. This certification was created by companies that import honey. And it is, overall, a worthless certification.
ISO Lab Tested means that a lab used standardized testing procedures, but unless the specific test results are disclosed, it says nothing about whether the honey is pure, unadulterated, or free from additives. The test results would make this claim, not simply that it was tested by an ISO lab.
QAI Certification is a USDA-accredited certifier, but their process for imported honey is largely based on remote paperwork. A system based on self-reporting by the producer of the honey that they are doing it in an organic way and in an organic location. It’s based on the honor system.
The Real Risk
In short, these labels are mostly trust-based systems. They provide structure—but not assurance. At best, they represent an honest effort to follow international supply chain standards. At worst, they can be used by unethical buyers to disguise low-cost, commodity honey and sell it under the guise of premium Organic quality. Often undercutting US honey producers, who the USDA does not allow an Organic certification. And their non-organic honey is more expensive than the organic honey that comes from South America.
It was only in 2024 that a test was completed on 25 imported supermarket jars of honey and 5 jars from local beekeepers in the UK. 24 out of 25 supermarket honeys were found to be blended with syrups to some degree. All 5 of the local beekeepers’ honeys were found to be 100% authentic honey.
It’s a problem.
A Gray Area That Impacts Everyone
Labels Shared by the Best and Worst
This is the core of the problem: the system creates a large gray zone. Both high-integrity and low-integrity producers can operate under the same labels. Certifications that were created to support transparency have inadvertently become a shared space where both the best and worst honey importers coexist.
For the customer, it is tough to figure this out. As both the high-quality and low-quality honey have the same labels and claims. You would need to visit the company’s website to determine if their claims are supported by any evidence.
Speaking specifically about Organic honey, it would be good to see recent documentation and on-going testing that shows the final product has a high pollen count and is free of synthetic chemicals. Short of that, it is just marketing and trust. If we imported honey and could prove that it was organic, free of synthetic chemicals and could share evidence of that, I would be sure to include that in the marketing.
Even the Experts Are Losing Confidence
And even the experts are struggling with it. Apimondia, the world’s leading beekeeping federation, recently suspended its international honey competition—not due to lack of interest, but because they could not confidently verify that the entries labeled as honey were, in fact, genuine honey. That speaks volumes about the current state of the global honey market.
The U.S. System Needs to Catch Up
A Broken Framework
Unfortunately, the current U.S. framework allows all of this. Labeling laws are vague, enforcement is limited, and no verification system is in place to prove that a honey labeled “organic,” “raw,” or “pure” actually is. If a 3rd party approves it as organic, then the US does too.
This is a wolf watching the henhouse situation here. At least that is what it looks like.
There is a growing movement among U.S. beekeepers, honey producers, some importers, and food transparency advocates to change this. The goal is to push for clearer labeling, enforceable standards, and real-world purity verification that protects both consumers and honest domestic producers. It’s a struggle across the board so it’s not an easy task.
But as of now, we are not there yet.
If you are interested in honey that is as pure as it gets, visit our page with honey available by the location it comes from. It’s absolutely delicious, and we have done nothing to it except put it in a pretty jar. It’s actually Pure, Raw & Unfiltered Honey.
What Is Organic Honey?
Organic honey is regular honey that has been made by the same types of bees that make the typical honey that we think of. The difference is how the bees are managed and where the bee supply are from.
Much like in standard agriculture, there are guidelines for how the colony must be managed to market the honey as raw. The distinction between raw honey vs regular honey is significant, with raw honey believed to offer greater health benefits. Because the US does not have any adopted guidelines for certifying honey organic, the US doesn’t have any US-produced organic honey.
Generally, in order for bees to produce organic honey, they must be kept in an area free of pesticides, and genetically modified crops (GMO) and the colony kept healthy without any synthetic chemicals. It doesn’t mean no chemicals; it just means that the approved organic chemicals are used.
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.
A jar of honey that says “unfiltered honey”, does not mean that it is organic. Organic honey can be filtered so much that it doesn’t have any pollen in it. I know it’s confusing… Sorry.
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.
Read Why Did My Package of Bees Leave to learn more.
Once the bees forage on the surrounding flowers and have turned them into honey inside the colony, the beekeeper can harvest the honey from the hive and sell it as organic honey.
The hives are left in this area year round, and the bees can continue to forage from the flowers and make more 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.
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.
Is Organic Honey Raw?
Organic and raw are two different terms used to describe pure honey vs raw honey. Honey can be raw but not organic. Pure honey can also be organic but not raw.
When comparing raw honey vs regular honey, raw honey is often considered to offer greater health benefits due to minimal processing, which helps retain more nutrients and enzymes.
If honey is organic, it means it is supposed to come from bees that have foraged for pollen and nectar on flowers that have not been exposed to any synthetic pesticides or herbicides.They must also be from a beekeeping operation that doesn’t use synthetic pest controls on the bees, among other things.
Beyond this, the honey can be treated any way the beekeepers want to in preparation for the market. So the beekeeper can heat or filter the honey as desired during production before the customer receiving the honey.
How Can Honey Be Organic?
Regardless if you call the organic, raw, unprocessed, etc… it is good for you. Don’t think that just because the honey is not or is organic that it is more or less healthy.
There is a point where it’s just splitting hairs, but it is important to know what organic honey is. Bees travel from flower to flower, collecting nectar and depositing pollen on each flower.
The flowers need to be organic as well, which means the area the bees are foraging on needs to be 100% natural without any synthetic farming or growing processes.
There are only certain parts of the world that have these types of environments. Most of the organic honey in the US comes from Brazil, which makes sense because Brazil is mostly an unmanaged rainforest.
Because of this, Brazil is a natural environment where organic honey can be made. When looking at bottles of honey , check the source of the honey, and you will often find it is from South America.
Single Varietal And Wildflower Honey
We mentioned earlier that wildflower honey from a purely organic environment can be an opportunity to produce organic honey. Wildflower honey is the only type that can be organic because most farms with an area large enough for bees to forage from are usually non-organic farms.
If you are shopping and you see Orange Blossom Honey, Avocado Honey, Blueberry Honey, or most other single source type of honey, they are typically from conventional farms that require non-organic pesticides and herbicides for their farm.
So those types of honey, even though they may be delicious honey, are typically never going to be organic. In order for those to be considered single-source honey and not wildflower honey, that honey has to be at least 51% from that plant.
What Is Raw Honey?
When it comes to buying unfiltered, raw, and organic honey in the United States, the best option is to buy honey that is labeled “Raw Honey.”
This means that the raw honey has never been heated or only been heated to a temperature the bees are naturally able to get the honey temperature too.
This is typically around 100°F. Inside a hot beehive on a hot day, the honey can get that warm inside the hive. No regulation monitors the word “raw” on honey, but this is the general understanding of the word.
The rule of thumb beekeepers use is to keep the honey temperature below 105°F. Above 105°F, the natural enzymes in the honey start to degrade, so you can be assured that the honey is still raw.
There is no regulation that controls how much heat can be applied to honey to prevent antioxidants and other nutrients or compounds from being destroyed. But this is just general common sense based on how hot honey gets naturally inside the hive.
Usually, raw honey is also unfiltered or “gently strained.”This means that the strainer or filter used to remove debris from the honey is course enough to let 100% of the pollen and enzymes through but small enough to keep bits of wax, bees, and debris out of the honey. This is something that nearly all beekeepers do before bottling.
What Does Grade A Honey Mean?
Honey that has been labeled “Grade A” has likely been ultra-filtered and likely heated to remove any pollen or other small particles out. It’s best to buy honey that has not been graded by the USDA. That sounds counterintuitive, but the USDA standards for honey are backward and require all honey to be ultra-filtered and heated. So avoid “Grade A” honey if you want wan the natural enzymes and antioxidants still in your honey.
"Certified" Organic Honey
It’s tough making sense of all the honey available. That is because there are lot of gray areas for the casual honey shopper. I think egg shopping is more straightforward than buying honey off the shelf. And we all know how confusing egg packaging can be.
This is the most popular organic honey on Amazon and is sold by Whole Foods. It has the USDA Organic Seal and also says US Grade A on it.
If you look at the honey (click the 2nd image below) the back label says its a product of Mexico, Uruguay and Brazil. All 3 countries!. Yikes…This is true of all certified organic honey in the US.
The Legal Dilema
The USDA, which certifies organic foods, never adopted (as of 2021) standards to certify honey as organic. Organic isn’t an adjective or a sign for natural food. It is a certification given by the government, specifically, the USDA. This is a certification with some really strict guidelines, by the way.
Because the USDA has no standard for organic honey, not a single beekeeper can legally label or tell consumers their honey is organic. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the nature of the beast. The closest thing we have in the US to certified organic honey is Certified Naturally Grown . This is a reasonable and respectable goal for any beekeeper.
The Moral Dilema
Bees forage three miles in all directions around the hive and possibly up to five miles around the hive for pollen and nectar. This is an area of just over 78 square miles of potential forage for one hive. Even if the bees foraged for three miles, that’s 28 square miles.
In the 28-78 square miles, the plants must be free of fungicides, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers. They must also not be genetically modified. These four requirements alone make organically produced honey practically impossible for any US-based beekeeper. Any US beekeeper labeling their honey as organic would be significantly bending the truth to increase profit and sales.
Hawaii is a source of Honey from the US that could possibly be Organic. There are some beekeepers that are able to sell their honey this way because of the natural landscape in Hawaii , but it is becoming increasingly difficult for them.
Even these honey in Hawaii that say they are organic don’t have the USDA Organic sticker.
But What About The USDA Certified Organic Honey At The Health Food Stores?
The USDA recognizes the organic certifications from other countries and all of organic honey is from other countries. Brazil, Mexico, and Canada produce most of the organic honey sold in the US. Read all about it here.
Organic honey is 100% honey and has all the same health benefits as nonorganic honey of the same quality. There would also not be any sweeteners, corn syrup, or other syrups.
What About The Beekeeper Down At The Farmer's Market?
Most customers search for honey at farmers’ markets, which is a great place to find the sweet stuff made by bees. This is often where you will find the best honey as well.
We typically recommend a farmer’s market as a reliable source to find local honey for customers out of state.
Typically at these farmers markets is where you will mostly find wildflower honey.
The most popular honey in the US, Clover Honey, is produced mostly in North Dakota and South Dakota.
The USDA has an organic exception for food producers that sell less than $5,000 a year. Read more details here. The exemption allows the seller to use the USDA organic label or the word “organic”, without having to get officially certified.
However, the seller must be truthful in advertising and follow all organic requirements. Any beekeeper can say their honey is organic, but they have to be confident all 28-78 square miles around their hives qualify as organic.
You could imagine how difficult this would be for a beekeeper to make that claim honestly. As beekeepers, they have no control over where their colony sends each bee to forage.
We obviously don’t advertise our honey as organic, but it is raw, unfiltered, and local (if you are from Alabama). If you want to support us and order our honey, see all the honey we offer.
Is Raw Honey The Same As Organic Honey?
Organic honey is not the same as raw honey as they mean two completely different things. Honey can be considered organic, but can still be heated above 105° while it is being processed.
Honey can be raw, but not be organic because the flowers the bees foraged from were not organic. It is confusing to say the least, because there is little control over the terms used to describe honey produced in the US.
Honey that has come from a beekeeper in the area being sold is most likely to be raw, but not organic.
This type of honey is likely the best quality available as a backyard, local beekeepers can easily produce raw honey and are not allowed to describe their honey as organic.
If a local beekeeper is describing their honey as organic, they are either unaware of the laws surrounding organic honey or are deceiving their customers on purpose.
A Beekeepers Take On Buying The Best Honey
If eating organic honey is very important to you, then you will have to source your honey from international sources. Even then, it is possible that the organic certification from other countries may not be to the level you are hoping for.
When there is a lot of money to be made, there is an opportunity for fraud. The US is constantly fighting to prevent that from happening during the importation of honey.
If you are a honey lover and are looking for a high-quality honey from your area, look no further than your local beekeeper selling their raw honey. It may not be labeled organic, but it is likely given to you close to how the bees make it. And it is hard to beat that. Remember, bees > beekeeper > you is way better than Bees > Beekeeper > Exporter > Foreign Customers > Domestic Customs > Importer > Bottler > Amazon > You
Adam Hickman owns Foxhound Bee Company and is a certified EAS Master Beekeeper. Before ever selling a box through Foxhound Bee Company, Adam wrote beekeeping blogs for education. Adam regularly teaches beekeeping classes through Foxhound Bee Co and also through his local beekeeping club.