Raw Honey: Everything You Need to Know

What is raw honey, actually?

Raw honey is honey exactly as it comes out of the hive: spun from the frame, sieved to catch the wax, and bottled. Nothing is added, and nothing is heated out of it. That’s the whole definition.

“Pure” honey is a bit murkier. Legally in Australia, “pure honey” just means it hasn’t been mixed with anything else, sugar syrup, flavouring, whatever. It doesn’t say anything about whether it’s been heated or filtered. So honey can technically be “pure” and still be heavily processed. That’s actually why I call what we sell “Pure Raw Honey”, pure covers the no-additives part, raw covers the no-processing part.

Is raw honey actually better than regular honey?

Most honey you’ll find on a supermarket shelf has been heated to around 70°C to keep it smooth, clear and shelf-stable, and some of it gets blended with cheaper imported honey to bring the cost down. Heating honey doesn’t just change its texture, it also breaks down the natural enzymes and some of the aromatic compounds that give raw honey its fuller flavour.

We don’t do either of those things here. Everything we sell is spun straight from our own Melbourne hives, sieved, and bottled, nothing heated, nothing blended in. What’s in the jar is what the bees actually made.

Is the honey on Australian supermarket shelves actually real?

This is a hot topic right now, not just marketing talk. Recent testing found real problems with imported honey sold in Australia, and the ACCC is currently investigating. I wrote about it separately: Fake Honey in Australia: What 2025 Testing Really Found.

Short version: buying from someone who can tell you exactly which hives your honey came from is the most reliable way to know what you’re actually getting, more reliable than any home test (more on that below).

Does raw honey actually have more benefits?

Because raw honey isn’t heated, it holds onto more of its natural enzymes and antioxidants than processed honey does, that part’s well established. Beyond that, I’d be careful of anything that sounds too good to be true.

You’ll see raw honey linked to everything from better sleep to lower stress hormones. There’s a popular claim going around that a spoonful before bed lowers cortisol and helps you sleep. But the evidence for that specific claim is still thin. There’s a plausible theory behind it, but no strong clinical proof yet.

Is raw honey safe to eat?

For adults and kids over 12 months, yes. The one hard rule: never give honey, raw or otherwise, to a baby under 12 months old.

Honey can contain dormant bacterial spores (Clostridium botulinum) that a baby’s gut isn’t developed enough to handle yet, and it can lead to infant botulism, which is serious. This isn’t a “raw honey” issue specifically; it applies to all honey, pasteurised or not, since heating doesn’t kill those spores either. Once a child turns one, their gut can handle it just fine.

Does raw honey go off? Do I need to refrigerate it?

Honey is one of the few foods that basically doesn’t spoil if it’s stored properly, sealed, and kept away from moisture. Properly stored raw honey can last for years, decades even. You don’t need to refrigerate it, in fact, keeping it in the fridge speeds up crystallisation. Room temperature, out of direct sunlight, lid on tight, that’s all it needs.

Why does my raw honey go thick and grainy?

That’s crystallisation, and it’s completely normal, it’s actually a good sign your honey hasn’t been over-processed. Every raw honey crystallises eventually, some faster than others depending on its natural sugar makeup. If it firms up more than you’d like, sit the jar in some warm water (nothing hotter than about 40°C, or you’ll start breaking down the good enzymes) and give it a stir, it’ll loosen right back up.

How do you actually know you’re getting real raw honey?

Since you can’t reliably test honey at home (I’ve gone through why the popular water and flame tests don’t actually work in my other article), the real answer comes down to who you’re buying from. Can they tell you which hives it came from? Do they process it themselves? A little scepticism about very cheap honey or vague labelling goes a long way.

That’s really the whole reason we do this the way we do. Every jar of Ben’s Bees honey comes from our own hives around Melbourne, spun, sieved, and bottled by us, nothing else happens to it. If you want to try it, our Pure Raw Honey 500g is the easiest place to start.