This is my 50th year of beekeeping.
I'm in northern New Mexico.
Back in 1973-74, a company set up in Albuquerque was selling 5% honey 95% high fructose corn syrup with a label which said HONEY in huge letters and underneath that "imitation" in extremely small letters.
We members of the New Mexico Beekeeping Association got together and lobbied the state legislature to pass the "Pure Honey Act", which prohibited anyone offering for sale a product which contained the word "Honey" on the label displayed prominently unless the contents were 100% pure honey. The counterfeiter in Albuquerque got out of the phony honey business.
For many years, we didn't see phony honey on the stores shelves in New Mexico.
Then about five years ago, I noticed the local WalMart store had bottles of phony honey for sale, with the label saying basically the same thing that the guy used back in 1973-74. When I came home, I looked up the state law online and found that the "Pure Honey Act" had been repealed a couple years before. I searched and found the details of the Agriculture Committee hearings and found that the then officers of the New Mexico Beekeepers' Association and representatives of the NM Department of Agriculture had attended the hearings and AGREED AND CONSENTED TO THE REPEAL OF THE PURE HONEY ACT!!!
I had become inactive as a member of the NMBA (for good reasons). But I felt that the officers of that organization had betrayed our profession and honest beekeepers not only within the state, but everywhere!
I have despaired of ever mounting another campaign to outlaw the phony honey here in NM. It took a lot of effort and time back in 1974, I'm getting older now... and already planning on cutting my beekeeping down to a couple of hives in the garden...
It's a ****ed shame.
You've got to have a law... either state of federal, preferably both... and you've got to have effective enforcement by the F&DA and state consumer protection officials. Years ago, I talked with the state agent for the F&DA and they told me honey is very low priority for them... that they were concerned more about foods which could make people sick or kill them... and that they had very limited resources and personnel and that lab testing was beyond their budgets....
The National Honey Producers Association started fighting the importation of contaminated Chinese honey many years ago. It was an expensive fight, but finally we got a ban enacted. Now the Chinese are by-passing the ban by selling to India, Viet Nam and Mexico and Chinese honey has been entering the USA again in recent years.
Unscrupulous honey packers from many places are now selling as "honey" a product diluted with varying amounts of high fructose corn syrup.
It's going to be up to you younger beekeepers to fight the good fight in coming years.
Educate your customers!!
Educate the general public!!
Enlist and push your elected legislators both state and national.
Then push for enforcement!
Then you may be able to truthfully say
"All the Best to You!!"
KB Garrison
New Mexico