HONEY CATEGORIES

Participants do not need to send the honeys to Chile in advance, you can bring the exhibits with you to congress center to participate in the contest. Judging will be done during the congress and basic analyse will be done in Chile. After the selection of qualifiers, selected honeys will be sent to Europe for detailes lab analyse.

To be able to bring your honey to Chile please follow the customs regulations and contact the freight forwarding company to request import authorization of your honey to Chile. You can find this document on the web site.

1. Participation Requirements

1.1. Participation is open to all amateur and professional beekeepers, producer groups, registered for the 48th Apimondia International Apicultural Congress (thereafter the ‘Congress’) with any Congress Pass (including Full, Accompanying, Daily, Student, free, or Exhibition Pass). Honeys coming from packers and traders are not authorized to participate this year in the contest.

1.2. Members of the Judging Panel are not eligible to participate. Any person involved in the organisation of the 48th 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 2023. Make sure that all relevant sections 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.

1.5. Follow the customs regulations and contact the freight forwarding company to request import authorization of your honey to Chile. You can find this document on the web site.

1.6. Print the “Participation Form” of the congress and also the “Descriptive Honey Form WBA-H” which you can find on the web site. Do not forget to attach these 2 forms with the proof of payment of the congress. Send these forms to the organisers via [email protected]. Also keep a copy of these forms for your reference.

1.7. English is the official language of the WBA 2023. All mails and the honey description form must be submitted in English.

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

2. Type of honeys accepted

This year, we will work only with raw honey:
Honey extracted from the combs, settled, and then strained. Raw honey must not have been heated to the extent that its original invertase enzyme falls under 50 EU/kg, or 25 EU/kg for specific monofloral honeys (citrus, lavendula, rhododendron, tilia, robinia, rosmarinus, brassica, arbustus, erica arborea, tropical origin…).

The botanical origin (multifloral honey, monofloral, forest honey or honeydew) and the type of honey (crystalized, liquid, honey comb) to which the submitted honey refers must be clearly indicated on the form.

For monofloral honey or specific honeydew, the botanical origin must be specified. If needed, the botanical origin can be confirmed by laboratory analyses.

For Liquid Honey

Honey must stay naturally liquid without liquefaction process (warming). The exhibits should have no signs of granulation.

For Crystallised Honey

Natural crystallization is accepted but technical methods can be used to improve the process of crystallization to arrive to a soft-crystallized honey. It’s better if multifloral honey presents a smooth, matt dry surface with no movement, and the consistency of spreadable butter.

For Honey Comb

The honey comb must be presented in such a way that its presentation can be easily judged (quality of the capping, etc.). One piece in each container.

3. Requirement for Honey Exibits

3.1. Official requirement

To participate in the Contest the entrant must comply with the WBA 2023 official rules and – honey must at least comply with the Honey CODEX rules and the legislation of their country and evidently not show signs of contamination and/or adulteration.

3.2. 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. The blend of honeys coming from different countries is not accepted.

The official honey “WBA 2023 – Honey – Descriptive form ” (available on the website) must be completed with all information on traceability.

3.3. Presentation of Raw Honey and Honey comb

Honey must be presented 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 identified in relation to the descriptive form.

Main requirements for exhibiting honey are:

• Jars/containers of honey to be between 225g and 1 kg and filled to the correct level.
• No form of identification by means of any label attached to the jar other than a sign or label that can be easily removed or erased which gives the code of the honey used on the form.

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

Main requirements for exhibiting comb honeys are:

• The container of the piece of comb must be transparent and airtight.
• No form of identification by means of any label attached to the container other than a sign or label that can be easily removed or erased which gives the code of the comb honey used on the form.

3.4. Quality requirements

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

Here is the list of tests that can be done by laboratories:

• Humidity must be under 18 % for all the honey presented
• HMF must be under 20 mg/kg for temperate zones and 40 mg/kg for tropical and mediterranean zones
• Invertase must be up to 50 UE and up to 25 UE for some monoflorals honey poor in enzymes (tropical honeys and citrus, lavander, tilia, erica arborea, arbustus, …)
• 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.
• Adulteration to check the absence of foreign sugar

For monofloral honeys

• Sugar and or Pollen analysis to check whether they meet the specific criteria established for the botanical origin
• Conductivity to check the presence of honeydew or a specific botanical origin
• Organoleptic test for monofloral honeys to verify their typicality

3.5. Quantity requirement

To participate participant must submit at least:

• 750g of honey in at least two anonymous samples;
• 800g of honey comb in at least two anonymous samples

One jar or cut-comb may be exhibited and will be used to carry out the visual analysis of the honey by the judges and will subsequently be used for the analyses that will validate the fact that the honey meets the criteria required to participate in this competition. The other(s) will be used for organoleptic analysis and other analyses if necessary.

4. Deposit of Honey Exibits

All honeys for contest must be presented at the Apimondia contest desk as soon as possible after your arrival in the congress area
A copy of the “WBA 2023 – Honey - Descriptive form(s)” must be attached to the honey(s) that you bring with you. The honeys which have not been deposited on the first day of the congress (4 September before 18:00) at the required place will be automatically excluded from the contest.

5. Entry Fees for the Honey Contest

5.1. The costs (without taxes) for all types of honey is 60 US$

5.2. This fee helps to cover the costs linked to the organization and the analysis fee of the contest.

5.3. After you have completed payment, you will receive by email confirmation that you are registered.

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

5.5. The WBA 2023 organising team reserve the right to reduce entries fees for special promotions.

5.6. 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.

6. Time Limits - Entering

All the “WBA 2023 – Honey - Descriptive form(s)” must be received before 31 July 2023 by the organizers (mail: [email protected])

7. Organoleptic judging process

The judgement of honey will be done on the basis of organoleptic tests. Here is the table which will be used by the jury for the evaluation of the honeys and comb honeys

	Liquid	Crystallized	Comb
Visual (cleanliness, homogeneity, no scumming on the surface of the honey, specificity of colour for monofloral …)	5	4	9
Odour (intensity, originality, specificity(monofloral),)	3	2	1
Texture (quality of the crystallization and firmness for crystalized and viscosity for liquid)	2	4	2
Savour – sweetness, acidity, bitterness, astringency (balance, intensity, originality, specificity for monofloral)	4	4	3
Aromas (balance, intensity, originality, specificity for monofloral)	6	6	5

The jury will come from different countries and cultures.
The list of the honeys selected to be validated by laboratory analyses after the organoleptic test will be announced during the congress.

8. Validation phase of the results

After the organoleptic selection process and the end of the congress, the honeys will be validated in 2 stages, to verify that they comply with the analytical requirements

• First tests will be realized in an official laboratory in Chile: HMF, humidity, conductivity, invertase antibiotic analysis, confirmation of the botanical origin
• Second tests: adulteration in an independent laboratory.

Honeys that don’t fulfil all the requirements will be excluded.

9. Awarding of medals after the validation of the results

All honeys selected by the organoleptic jury and satisfying the criteria defined for participation in this competition (based on the analyses of the laboratories) will be issued a medal.

Based on the organoleptic tests and the assessments made by the various juries, three levels of high quality recognition Gold, Silver and Bronze may be awarded to the validated honeys.

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.

There is no limit to the number of medals, 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.

10. Publication of the results

As soon as we receive all the analytical results, a press conference will be organized to inform the press of the list of the winners of the WBA 2023 – Honey. All the participants will be informed at least 15 days before this press conference. Results also will be announced via Apimondia Web Page (www.apimondia.com) We hope that it can be done before the end of 2023.

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 2023 rules and undertakes to respect them. Any practical difficulty or interpretation of these rules will be settled by Apimondia in its capacity as organiser.