HONEY CATEGORIES

1. Participation Requirements

1.1. Participation is open to all amateur and professional beekeepers, producer groups, packers, traders registered for the 47th Apimondia International Apicultural Congress (thereafter the ‘Congress’) with any Congress Pass (including Full, Accompanying, Daily, Student, free, or Exhibition Pass) or with an online registration.

1.2. Members of the Judging Panel are not eligible to participate. Any person involved in the organisation of the 47th Apimondia Congress and the members of the Apimondia Executive Council are entitled to submit an exhibit but, if it is deemed worthy, can be granted a simple mention but not an award.

1.3. Register online for participating in the Honey WBA 2022. Make sure that all relevant sections (forms WBA-H1 and WBA-H2) have been completed and that you confirm to having read and understood the rules and regulations.

1.4. Read the class requirements carefully. Select the classes in which you are participating and complete payment for each class. There is no limit on the number of classes entered by a participant but participants may submit up to a maximum of 3 exhibits in each class.

1.5. Print the “Registration Confirmation Form” of the congress that you’ll receive via online registration system after you finalize the registration process and make the payment and also the “Participation Form / WBA-H1” and the “Participation Form / WBA-H2” which you can find on the web site. Do not forget to attach these 3 (4 or more if several honeys are presented) forms with the proof of payment of the congress and the competition to the honeys you intend to present. Also keep a copy of these forms for your reference.

1.6. English is the official language of the WBA 2022. All mails and the honey description form must be submitted in English.

1.6. Any exhibitor seen or known to have attempted to bribe any member of the judging panel will immediately have all their exhibits disqualified.

2. Requirement to Honey Exibit

2.1 Official requirement
To participate in the Contest the entrant must fullfill the WBA 2022 official rules and - honey must fullfill the Honey CODEX rules and the legislation of their country and surely absence of contamination and of adulteration

2.2 Traceability
Honey must present a full traceability from the beekeeper to the jar. In case of blend of honey, at least the number of beekeeper producers implicated and their geographical localisation (region and country) must be indicated in the document linked to the honey presented. In case of blend of honeys coming from different countries, the % of honey coming from the different countries must be indicated.

The official honey “Description form WBA-H2” (available on the website) must be attached to the honey entered in the competition.

2.3 Presentation of Honey, Honey frame and Honey with added natural products
Honey must be send in standard colourless glass jars of any shape or clear transparent plastic containers. Jars or containers must have secure, easily removable lids, standard screw tops or twist-offs. Lids may be either metal or plastic. In case of presentation of different honeys, they must be clearly identify in relation to the form of identification.

Main requirements to the exhibiting of honey and honey with added natural products are:-

• Jars/containers of honey to be between 225g and 750g and filled to the correct level.
• No form of identification by means of any label attached to the jar other than the a sign or label that can be easily removed or erased who give the code of the honey use on the form.

Note: this is what is meant by colourless glass jar. This shows a white plastic screw-on lid.

2.4 Quality requirements

All the honey samples can be check to verify their quality and authenticity.

Here is the list of test that can be done

1. Humidity must be under 18 % for all the honey presented
2. HMF must be under 20 mg/kg for temparate zone and 40 mg/kg for tropical and mediterranean zones and mixture of temperate and tropical or mediterranean zones
3. Conductivity to check the presence of honeydew
4. Invertase must be up to 50 UE for Raw honey and up to 25 UE for some Raw monoflorals honey poor in enzymes (citrus, lavander, tilia, erica arborea, arbustus, tropical honeys like lichi…)
5. Antibiotics must be under a limit which highlights the absence of antibiotic use in the hives and detection limit of the laboratory for ban antibiotics like chloramphenicol or nitrofuran.
6. Sugar and or Pollen analysis for monofloral honeys to check whether they meet the specific criteria established for the botanical origin
7. Organoleptic test for monofloral honeys to verify their typicality
8. Adulteration to check the absence of foreign sugar

3. List of possible classes

The class to which the submitted honey refers must be clearly indicated on the form.

3.1. Raw honey

Honey extracted from the combs, settled, and then strained. Raw honey has not been heated to the extent that its original invertase enzyme fall under 50 EU/kg or 25 EU/kg for specific monofloral honeys (citrus, lavendula, rhododendron, tilia, robinia, rosmarinus, brassica, lichi, arbustus, erica arborea…).

Section A. Raw Liquid Honey

In this section, honey must stay naturaly liquid without liquefaction process (warming)

The exhibits in Section A should have no signs of granulation when the honey arrive in the laboratory.

Class 1. Multifloral honey, forest honey or honeydew from different botanical origins

Class 2. Monofloral liquid honey or specific honeydew (botanical origin must be specified). The botanical origin will be confirmed by laboratory analyzes

Section B. Raw Crystallised Honey

Natural cristallization is accepted but technical method can be used to improve the process of cristallization to arrive to a soft-crystallized honey (honey can have a smooth, matt dry surface with no movement, and be the consistency of spreadable butter.)

Class 3. Cristallized multifloral honey or honeydew from different botanical origins.

Class 4. Naturally crystallised monofloral honey or specific honeydew (botanical origin must be specified). The botanical origin will be confirmed by laboratory analyzes.

Section C. Honey Comb

Class 5. Pieces of cut-comb honey displayed in cut-comb containers. (One piece in each container).

3.2 Processed Honey

Section D. Processed Liquid Honey

This section must present only honeys with a natural low speed of cristallization (F/G > 1,3). Pasteurization is alowed but HMF must stay < 20 mg/kg. The exhibits here should have no signs of granulation during all the analytical process till the final jugement.

Class 6. Multifloral liquid honey, forest honey or honeydew from different origins

Class 7. Monofloral liquid honey or specific honeydew (botanical origin must be specified). The botanical origin will be confirmed by laboratory analyzes.

Section E. Processed Crystallised Honey

These exhibits should have a smooth, matt dry surface with no movement, and be of the consistency of spreadable butter.

Class 8. Soft crystallised multifloral honey or honeydew from different origins

Class 9. Soft crystallised monofloral honey or specific honeydew (botanical origin must be specified). The botanical origin will be confirmed by laboratory analyzes.

Section F. Honey with added natural products

Class 10. Jars of honey with added products (cinnamon, nuts, dried fruits, etc.). Jars/containers filled to the correct level.

4. Quantity requirement

To participate participant must submit at least:

1. 750g of honey in two or tree anonymous samples;
2. 1 kg of honey with added natural products in two or tree anonymous samples;
3. 800g of honey comb (e.g. 4 X 200g)

One jar or cut-comb of which may be exhibited or pictures can be presented. The other(s) will be used for physico-chemical analysis included adulteration and antibiotics analyzes and organoleptic testing. The honey samples will be taken at random for the tests.

5. Shipment of Honey Exibit

All exhibits to be sent to:
CARI asbl
1 Place Croix du Sud bte L7.04.01
Bâtiment Boltzmann (étage +1)
1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Belgium

The completed honey description form must be included with the package.

Particular attention should be paid to the packaging of the samples which must withstand shocks during transport to the laboratory. In case of glass breakage, the participant will be informed and will have to send a new shipment in time under penalty of disqualification.

It is advisable to find out from the official customs service in your country what information should be included on the package (e.g. worthless sample for analysis)

The laboratory will allocate a specific anonymous number to the samples.

6. Entry Fees for the Honey Contest

6.1. Here are the costs for all the categories

1. Individual 50 Euro
2. Commercial 150 Euro

6.2. The cost covers all the cost linked to the organization and the analysis fee of the contest.

6.3. After you have completed payment, you will receive by email that you you are register and that you can use “General Information Form WBA-H1” and the “Descriptive Honey Form WBA-H2” which you have to complete before attaching it to the exibition(s) honey(s).

6.3. All entry fees are non-refundable no matter the circumstances.

6.4. The WBA 2022 organising team reserve the right to reduce entries fees for special promotions.

6.5. The fee does not include attendance to the Congress, refreshments and lunch, travel and accommodation costs. A corresponding receipt will be issued for your records.

7. Time Limits - Entering

All the honey samples must be received by the laboratory before 27 May 2022.

When sending by post/courier please allow sufficient time as some packages are checked by customs at the departure of the country or at the entrance of EU (Belgium) and this could cause a delay (2 – 3 weeks for some countries outside of EU).

Take care of the impact of transport on the freshness of the samples. On arrival at the laboratory, the honeys will be kept at 14°C except for liquid honeys which will be kept at room temperature (± 24°C).

8. Awarding of medals

All honeys satisfying the criteria defined for participation in this competition will be issued a certificate indicating "Honey complying the criteria of the Apimondia honey competition".

Three levels of high quality recognition Gold, Silver and Bronze may be awarded.

Gold = Very high quality honey that perfectly meets the criteria for its category. These honeys are the dignified representatives of their class.

Silver = High quality honey that meets the criteria for its category. However, there are some slight imperfections which do not detract from its value.

Bronze = High quality honey that meets the criteria for its category. However, there are some imperfections which do not prevent this honey from standing out as a honey to be highlighted.

The awarding of the levels will be based on the assessments made by the various juries.

There is no limit to the number of medals per class, but as a general rule, 5% receive a gold medal, 10% a silver and 20% a bronze. These percentages are indicative but around 30 to 40 % of honey presented and complying the criteria can receive an award all categories combined.

The medal logo may only be used on the batch of honey corresponding to the award-winning honey.

9. Judging process

The selection process of the honeys will take place in several stages

1. Administrative control of the samples honeys (enough quantity, not broken…) and the descriptibe form (no information is missing) and identification number linked to the class of the honey
2. Visual evaluation of the honey by a specific jury – Pictures of the honeys
3. Repartition of the honey in different samples for analytical purpose
4. First tests : HMF, humidity, conductivity, invertase (only raw honeys) and in parallel adulteration analysis in a specific laboratory (JRC)
5. Organoleptic test in different country of EU for the evaluation of odours, texture, savour and aromas (only if the samples pass the first test)
6. Provisionnal ranking of the samples based on visual and organoleptic assessments and selection of honeys that could receive an award (± 40%)
7. Antibiotics analyse of the selected samples
8. Final selection on base of all the results and determining which honeys meet the criteria for a bronze, silver or gold medal.

The jugement of honey will be done for the honey who fullfill the analytical requirements on base of organoleptic tests. Here are the table who will be use for the evaluation of the honeys and honeys with natural added products.

	Liquid	Cristallized
Visual (colour (specificity for monofloral), homogeneity, cleanliness, no dust on the surface of the honey)	5	4
Odour (intensity, specificity(monofloral), originality)	3	2
Texture (quality of the cristallization and firmness for cristalized and viscosity for liquid)	2	4
Savour (intensity, specificity (monofloral), originality)	4	4
Aromas (intensity, specificity (monofloral), originality)	6	6

For Cut-comb the evaluation will be based on the next criteria: Visual 9point, Odour 1p., Texture of honey 2p., Savour and aromas of honey 8p.

The jury will come from different countries and cultures.

10. Staging of Exhibits

Pictures of honey presented to the laboratory and that fullfill the analytical test will be exhibited during the Apimondia congress.

Depending on the circumstances, some award-winning honeys may be exhibited.

11. Interpretation of the Regulation

Participation in the competition implies unreserved acceptance of the present rules as well as the decisions taken by the jury. The candidate acknowledges that he/she has read the honey WBA 2022 rules and undertakes to respect them. Any practical difficulty or interpretation of these rules will be settled by Apimondia in its capacity as organiser.