The third part of our hive to customer process is in our quality control laboratory.
Because we are so passionate about honey and its various properties, we decided very early on that we wanted to explore it in more depth and the way to do this was to have our own testing facility. Our Laboratory was born and has enabled us enormously in maintaining our stringent standards.
We developed our own Standardised Testing System to ensure the accuracy of our testing, and we use a full array of organoleptic and scientific testing measures.
Over the years we have built up a comprehensive database of several thousand honey samples that enables comparison analysis to be made. Accurate comparison is the only way to ensure conformity of honey type, especially mono floral honeys. We discovered that sugar comparisons, colour, pollen comparisons, and other chemical comparisons, did not vary greatly between samples of a common type. So nowadays we are able to accurately compare most honeys with known samples in order to confirm the identity of floral source.
We measure sugar contents and types in all of our honeys. In particular we measure everything using photo spectrometry; we test diastase, invertase and hydroxymethyl-furaldehyde also utilising photo spectrometry. We also measure the colour of honey on the p/fund scale in mm.
Using microscopy we analyse pollen content to finitely help to determine the origins of each type and to check the levels of undissolved matter present. Finally, each batch is taste tested before it is approved and proudly given its gold Littleover Apiary label.