Honey

Description of product

According to the German honey regulation, honey is a fluid or crystalline foodstuff that is produced by bees. The basic components are therefore purely plant-derived: bees collect nectar (sweet secretions of plants) or honeydew (secretions from plant lice) and add their own secretions. In the honeycomb of the beehive, the honey then "ripens". The compounds responsible for the typical taste and aroma of honey develop thereby and the plant-based sugar and starches are split into their basic components (maltose, glucose, fructose). In addition to nectar, bees also transport pollen on their hind legs and this pollen also is contained in comestible honey.

The aroma, colour and taste of the honey is determined by the plants from which the bees have collected nectar and other secretions.

• If the commercial labelling of the honey indicates a specific plant (e.g. rapeseed or lime-tree honey), it must be provable that a minimum of fifty per cent of the source nectar stems from this plant.
• No materials may be added to honey, nor may any inherent components extracted.
• The designation of honey according to specific sites or regions is allowed only when the honey stems exclusively from the noted area.

Eighty per cent of honey consumption in Germany is covered by imported products. Important honey-producing countries include: the USA, Argentina, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and China.

Possible application of gene technology

When bees harvest from the plants of genetically modified plants, the pollen of these plants will be present in the honey.

Melliferous rapeseed. While GM rapeseed in the EU only has been planted in field tests to date, it occupies more than sixty per cent of Canadian cultivation area since 1999.

• It must be assumed that Canadian honey contains pollen from genetically modified rapeseed particularly when identified as "rapeseed honey" or "rapeseed-clover honey".
  In a variety of honey products that have been imported from Canada, pollen from genetically modified rapeseed has been detected. With the aid of appropriate procedures, the proportion of DNA from GM rapeseed may be calculated for the total of rapeseed DNA present in the honey. Through this method, conclusions may be drawn about the rapeseed plants that were visited by the bees. Analysis by German food surveillance authorities have found pollen from GM rapeseed in Canadian honey. As much as a third of the total pollen present may be comprised of GM pollen.
• Rapeseed honey from Germany or Europe solely contains pollen from GM rapeseed when the beehive has stood in the immediate vicinity of a test field.

Melliferous maize. Since no nectar is produced in the male flowers at the tip of the plant, maize is not particularly interesting to bees and only is rarely visited. Nonetheless, flowering maize plays a role for bees as a source of pollen.

In Bavaria in 2004 and 2005, in the context of a field test with Bt maize, bee colonies in the immediate vicinity of fields with GM maize were appraised.

• Maize was detected in many probes but the quantities found were so low that it was impossible to determine whether GM maize actually was in question.
• In contrast, it must be assume that significant proportions of pollen from GM maize will be found in bees' pollen baskets in the case that bee colonies are established in the vicinity of fields of GM maize ("pollen baskets" are naturally-formed pollen containers on bees' legs, and bees brush this pollen off when re-entering the hive).
  

Other melliferous plants . Despite the fact that soybean is not a collection source for honeybees, traces of this plant are found in honey when bees travel through areas in which soy is cultivated. GM soybeans are cultivated on a large scale in Argentina, which is the most important producer of honey imported into Germany. Pollen from GM soy may therefore be detected in many Argentinean honeys, albeit in very miniscule quantities.

In the near future, a situation with regard to lucerne (also known as alfalfa) may develop as already is the case with rapeseed. This plant is used primarily as feed and often serves as a collecting area for bees. In the USA, GM lucerne is approved but its cultivation currently has been blocked due to legal conflict.

Approval and labelling. With regard to pollen from GM plants, honey is a borderline case in the legislation of foodstuffs.

• Pollen from a GM plant is not categorised as a "genetically modified organism capable of reproduction". Therefore, it does not need to be approved according to the regulations of the EU Directive on the deliberate release of GM organisms into the environment (or according to the German laws on gene technology).
  

• Honey that contains pollen or nectar from GM plants also is not subject to the EU Directive on genetically modified food and feed (1829/2003): its scope of application if defined by foodstuffs that "consist of a GMO" or are "produced therefrom". Neither of these is applicable to honey with regard to pollen from GMO.
  

• However, from a legal perspective, the approvals that are required for the commercial use of a GM plant and of the foodstuffs that are manufactured therefrom also would include pollen from the plant in question.
  

• Nonetheless: in a judgement which is not yet legally binding, the administrative court in Augsburg has declared that pollen from Bt maize MON810 categorically is prohibited in honey, which would need therefore special legal approval.

• Pollen from GM plants may be categorised as an accidental, technically unavoidable admixture, for which no labelling requirement exists.
  

• Honey contains only very small quantities of pollen. In relation to the total quantity of honey, the total proportion of honey may lie between 0.1 and 0.5 per cent.

• The possible proportion of honey from GM plants therefore remains far below the legal threshold value of 0.9 per cent and is - at least in the case of honey from Europe - so low, that detection is not possible.