Magic of Honey aim to facilitate the procurement of a variety of extraordinary award-winning raw honeys harvested from diverse wild and pristine botanical footprints in Africa and other natural products related to the hive. The importance of safe and prosperous beekeeping methodology will be posted to help budding and matured professional beekeepers improve their beekeeping knowledge, techniques and skills whilst steering clear of costly misconceptions and mistakes.
Head Apiarist for Magic of Honey
Georges Lenferna
Georges lives and breathes honey bees. He is passionate about the variety and quality of honeys that can be produced from the diverse ecosystems of South Africa’s biospheres regions and the resilience of African Honey Bees, Apis mellifera scutellata.
Georges has been operating for several years on remote and pristine apiary sites in the wild African savanna. The wide-ranging diversity of indigenous fauna and flora is the ideal habitat for the African honey bees to forage. Georges ensures that his apiary sites are far from commercial farms and habitations to steer clear of pollution and pesticides.
Georges’ beehives have been expressly built using organic materials, free of insecticides and preservatives to emulate the perfect natural habitat of the African honey bees and to promote their inborn behaviors. Georges believes and, has proven, that the higher the diversity of the natural fauna, the healthier the bee colonies and in turn the better the quality of the honey produced. The results have been exceptional as can be seen from the list of awards won.
The Definition of Honey And its Essential Composition
Honey is the natural sweet produced by honey bees from the nectar of plants or from secretion of living plants or excretion of plant sucking insects on the living parts of plants which the bees collect and transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store and leave in the honey comb to ripen and mature.
Codex Alimentarius states that honey sold as such shall not have added to it any food ingredient, including food additives, nor shall any other additions be made other than honey.
No pollen or constituent particular to honey may be removed except where this is unavoidable in the removal of foreign inorganic or organic matter.
Author: Prof. Roberto L. Garcia, is working intensively on the problem of honey frauds which are happening at an alarming rate worldwide.
www.apimondiaafrica2023.org.za
Types of Honey Fraud.
1. Dilution with different artificially manufactured syrups
2. Harvesting of immature honey.
3. Using ion-exchange resins to remove/reduce residues and/or lighten honey colour.
4. Masking and/or misleading the geographical and/or botanical origin of honey.
5. Artificial feeding of bees during a nectar flow.
6. Using dishonest labels to cheat customers.