That golden drizzle on your morning toast. A spoonful stirred into warm tea. Honey is such a familiar, everyday pleasure that it's easy to forget there's an entire industry—complicated, global, and genuinely fascinating—working to bring it to your table. Pull back the curtain, and what you'll find is a story of dedicated beekeepers, international trade battles, bees under threat, and a growing movement of consumers who actually care where their honey comes from.
We're right in the middle of that story. As a small, family-style honey business on Maryland's Eastern Shore, we source our Eastern Shore honey varietals from our own hives and from small ethical beekeepers across the USA. What happens in the wider honey industry affects us directly—and it affects you as a consumer, too. Here's what you need to know.
The Global Honey Market: Growing Faster Than You Might Think
The world's appetite for honey isn't slowing down. The global honey market was valued at approximately $10 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach somewhere between $15–18 billion by the mid-2030s, depending on which analysts you consult. The growth rate hovers around 4–7% annually—solid, consistent momentum driven by a very real cultural shift away from refined sugar and artificial sweeteners toward natural, minimally processed foods.
In the United States specifically, this shift is pronounced. The National Honey Board's 2024 consumer study found honey was the preferred natural sweetener across meal occasions among American consumers. Organic and raw honey sales grew faster than conventional honey in 2024, signaling that people aren't just buying more honey—they're buying better honey.
That's encouraging. But the story gets more complicated when you start looking at where that honey actually comes from.
The Great American Honey Gap
Here's something that surprises most people: the United States produces far less honey than we consume. American beekeepers work hard—but domestic production simply can't keep up with demand, which means we depend heavily on imported honey to stock our pantry shelves.
The countries filling that gap include China (the world's single largest producer, accounting for roughly 25% of global supply), Argentina, Brazil, India, and Turkey, among others. Each of these regions has its own quality standards, farming practices, and regulatory environment—which creates an enormous challenge for anyone trying to ensure that the honey they're buying is genuine.
And then there's the bee problem, which is serious.
Bee Colony Loss: The Most Important Story in Honey Right Now
In 2025, researchers at Washington State University projected that U.S. honeybee colony losses could reach between 60–70%—a dramatic spike from the already-alarming 40–50% annual losses of recent years. Professor Brandon Hopkins, a pollinator ecology expert at WSU, described the situation in stark terms: losses at this level could mean bankruptcies among commercial beekeepers.
The causes are interconnected and difficult to untangle. Varroa mite infestations continue to devastate colonies. Viral and bacterial diseases—some now antibiotic-resistant—compound the damage. Pesticide exposure, particularly during peak bloom periods, adds nutritional and physiological stress. Climate unpredictability disrupts traditional bloom cycles, leaving bees without reliable food sources at critical times.
This matters beyond honey production. Honeybees pollinate an estimated one-third of the food humans eat. Almonds, berries, apples, melons, avocados, cucumbers—the list of crops dependent on bee pollination is extraordinary. A beekeeping crisis is, at its core, a food supply crisis.
It's why we take our own stewardship seriously. Our head beekeeper Kara maintains our hives on the 102-acre Chesterhaven Beach Farm on the Chesapeake Bay with a pesticide-free, non-GMO approach—and we only partner with small, ethical beekeepers who share those values. You can read more about Kara's beekeeping journey here.
Honey Adulteration and "Honey Laundering": The Quality Problem
With so much honey flowing through global supply chains, quality control has become one of the industry's most serious ongoing challenges. The term "honey laundering" refers to a deceptive practice in which honey is mislabeled to obscure its country of origin or adulterated with cheaper substances—often corn syrup, rice syrup, or other added sweeteners—to increase volume and profit.
Historically, some suppliers have routed honey through multiple intermediate countries specifically to evade import duties and regulatory scrutiny. Honey that entered the US labeled as originating in Country A might have actually been produced in Country B, which faced tariffs or quality restrictions. Illegally imported and adulterated honey has been found to contain contaminants and antibiotic residues banned in the United States.
Regulatory bodies have cracked down significantly in recent years, but the problem hasn't disappeared. As of mid-2026, the European Union is implementing new origin disclosure requirements for honey labeling, a meaningful step toward transparency. In the US, enforcement continues to evolve.
This is why how you choose your honey matters—more than you might expect from something as simple-looking as a jar on a shelf. Understanding the differences between raw honey and commercial honey is a good first step.
Why Does Quality Honey Cost More? (And Why That's Okay)
This is one of the most common questions we hear, and it deserves a real answer. Pure, raw, minimally filtered honey is more expensive to produce for several straightforward reasons:
Ethical beekeeping is labor-intensive. Managing healthy colonies, monitoring for disease, maintaining pesticide-free environments, performing regular hive inspections—none of this happens automatically. It requires skilled, dedicated people spending real time with their bees.
Minimal processing costs more. Heavily processed commercial honey can be pasteurized, ultra-filtered, and blended in ways that extend shelf life, improve visual consistency, and reduce production costs. Raw honey skips most of that—which preserves its natural character and complexity, but requires more careful handling.
Authentic sourcing is non-negotiable. When you buy from a producer who is transparent about exactly where their honey comes from—which beekeepers, which region, which flowers—you're paying for that transparency. It costs more to know than to not know.
Our Eastern Shore honey varieties are pure, raw, and minimally filtered, Star K certified kosher, and sourced from our own farm or from small beekeepers we know personally. The price reflects the real cost of doing it right.
The Rise of Technology in Beekeeping
One of the more genuinely exciting developments in the industry is the adoption of technology to address beekeeping's oldest challenges. This isn't about replacing the human element—it's about giving beekeepers better information to act on.
AI and Sensor-Based Hive Monitoring
Forward-thinking beekeepers are now using sensor arrays placed inside hives to track temperature, humidity, sound frequency (the pitch of the bees' buzzing changes when the colony is stressed or queenless), and even weight fluctuations that indicate honey flow or colony loss. AI models analyze this data in real time, flagging potential problems before they become irreversible. Catching a Varroa infestation early, or detecting signs of queen failure weeks before it would otherwise be visible, can be the difference between a thriving colony and a dead one.
Blockchain for Traceability
Blockchain technology is being explored as a solution to the honey adulteration problem. The concept is straightforward: create an immutable digital record of every step in a honey's journey, from the beekeeper's harvest through processing and bottling. Scan a code on the jar, and you can verify its entire chain of custody. It's a promising tool for building the kind of supply chain transparency that consumers increasingly expect—and that makes honey laundering much harder to execute.
Beyond the Jar: What Else Bees Give Us
Honey gets all the attention, but bees produce other remarkable materials that deserve recognition.
Beeswax is secreted by young worker bees to build the honeycomb structure of the hive. It's a natural wonder—chemically complex, long-lasting, and extraordinarily versatile. We use beeswax from our hives in many of our honey-based skincare and body care products. Want to understand where beeswax actually comes from and how it's used? We wrote a whole guide on it, and another on the many uses of beeswax straight from the hive.
Propolis is a resinous substance bees create from plant compounds and use to seal and protect the hive. It has been studied for its natural properties and appears in many traditional wellness preparations, though we won't make specific claims about what it does for you.
Pollination services are arguably the most economically significant thing bees do. Many commercial agricultural crops—from California almonds to summer berries to the coffee you drink every morning—depend on honeybee pollination. The dollar value of pollination to US agriculture runs into the tens of billions annually.
How to Choose Quality Honey in 2026
Navigating the honey aisle with confidence comes down to a few key things.
Support transparent producers. Look for brands that tell you exactly where their honey comes from and how it was processed. Vague language like "Product of multiple countries" is a red flag. Specificity is a sign of integrity.
Understand what "raw" actually means. Raw honey is minimally processed and unpasteurized, preserving the natural character of the honey as the bees made it. Our guide to raw honey vs. regular honey breaks this down in more detail, and our honey glossary covers all the terminology you'll encounter.
Explore varietals. One of the great joys of moving beyond generic supermarket honey is discovering just how different honeys can taste. The floral, almost buttery sweetness of Orange Blossom. The rich complexity of Buckwheat or Sourwood. Each varietal tells the story of the landscape where it was made. Our Eastern Shore honey collection includes a range of varietals that reflect the distinct ecosystems of the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond.
Don't be surprised by crystallization. If your honey turns thick and grainy, that's actually a good sign—it means you have real, unprocessed honey. Heavily commercial honey is often ultra-filtered specifically to prevent crystallization, which removes natural particles but also strips character. Learn why honey crystallizes and how to gently return it to liquid form.
Buy local when you can. Whether you're looking for honey at a farmers' market or visiting our retail location in Maryland, buying from someone you can talk to—someone who can tell you which bees made your honey and where they were foraging—is the gold standard.
A Note on Honey and Tariffs in 2026
It's worth acknowledging that broader trade policy shifts in 2025 and 2026 have affected imported goods across many categories, including honey. As tariff structures evolve, the relative economics of domestic versus imported honey continue to shift. For small ethical producers like us, these changes are a reminder of why building relationships with American beekeepers—and supporting domestic honey production—matters beyond just the quality of what's in the jar.
The Future of Honey: Challenges and Real Reasons for Optimism
It would be dishonest to paint an entirely rosy picture. Colony losses at projected 2025 levels are genuinely alarming. Supply chain integrity challenges haven't been solved. Climate-driven disruptions to bloom cycles are a growing concern for beekeepers who depend on predictable seasonal patterns.
But there are real reasons to feel hopeful about where the industry is heading. Consumer awareness is rising—more people are asking better questions about their food than ever before. Investment in sustainable beekeeping technology is accelerating. Small producers committed to quality and transparency are finding audiences who share their values. And demand for the kind of raw, minimally processed, ethically sourced honey we've been making since we first installed hives on Chesterhaven Farm is genuinely growing.
Every jar of quality honey you purchase is a vote for the kind of beekeeping we believe in—careful, sustainable, and honest about where the honey came from and how it was made.
If you're curious about exploring some of the varietals we carry, our Eastern Shore honey collection is a good place to start. And if you want to go deeper on any of the topics we touched on here—from how honey is harvested to what honey actually is at a scientific level—we have plenty more to explore.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Honey Industry
Why is honey so expensive right now?
A combination of factors is driving honey prices up: record-high bee colony losses in the US (projected at 60–70% in 2025), increased tariffs on imported goods, growing consumer demand for raw and organic varieties, and the simple cost of ethical beekeeping practices. Pure, raw, minimally filtered honey from transparent sources has always cost more to produce than heavily processed commercial honey—and the gap is widening.
What is honey laundering?
Honey laundering refers to the practice of mislabeling honey to hide its true country of origin, or adulterating honey with cheaper sweeteners like corn syrup while still selling it as pure honey. It's been a persistent problem in global honey trade, particularly involving honey shipped through intermediary countries to evade tariffs and quality regulations. Regulatory crackdowns have made progress, but it remains an industry challenge.
Is honey imported from China safe?
This is a fair question given the history of adulteration concerns in global honey trade. The answer is: it depends entirely on the supplier, testing protocols, and import oversight. Not all honey imported from China is problematic, but the history of quality issues—including detected contaminants and adulteration—is why sourcing transparency matters so much. When in doubt, buy from producers who tell you exactly where their honey comes from.
What percentage of honey sold in the US is imported?
The US imports a substantial majority of the honey it consumes—domestic production has consistently fallen far short of demand for decades. The exact percentage fluctuates annually, but imports have typically accounted for 70–80% or more of US honey consumption in recent years.
How can I tell if my honey is real or adulterated?
There's no foolproof home test—lab analysis is the only definitive way to detect adulteration. But good signs of authentic honey include: knowing and trusting your source, understanding that real raw honey crystallizes over time, looking for clarity about origin on the label, and purchasing from producers who are open about their beekeeping practices and sourcing. Learn more about what makes raw honey different from processed honey.
What is the difference between raw honey and regular honey?
Raw honey is minimally processed and unpasteurized, preserving the natural character the bees created. Regular commercial honey is typically heated and ultra-filtered for consistency and longer shelf life. Our complete guide to raw vs. regular honey covers everything you need to know.
Why are bees dying in such large numbers?
The causes of bee colony loss are interconnected: Varroa mite infestations, antibiotic-resistant viral diseases, pesticide exposure (particularly neonicotinoids), nutritional stress from monoculture farming that reduces food diversity, habitat loss, and climate disruption that shifts bloom timing. There's no single culprit—it's a systemic challenge that requires systemic solutions. Read more about how sustainable farming practices support bee health.
Caring for this land and these communities is at the core of who we are. It's why we created Roots & Wings — our giving initiative that connects every purchase to something that matters. See how we give back.
