Curious about the selection of clover honey and "other" honey offered at my local grocery chain, I hit the web. I learned that due to the ease and popularity of both making and consuming clover honey, what is not marked clover is likely to still be, and that the more expensive the honey the better it probably tastes (specialty honeys such as cranberry costing even more). Brand names take great measures to maintain the integrity of the taste of their product, for example combining honeys from two different states, while generic, cheaper honey labels do not. So, your U.S.D.A. Food Club honey might look and taste different from purchase to purchase, may not be entirely clover, and is still safe to consume (which was my worry).

I found some other interesting tidbits from an engineering journal (2007): China produces the most honey--about 700 million pounds each year, while the U.S. eats the most honey--about 300 million pounds per year. An amazing fact is that a single bee makes less than one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime!

U.S. stats show that most U.S. honey is spat out by bees in California, Florida, and the Dakotas.

The nation's honey bee decline was researched and reported for Congress (2006). Bees are not returning to their hives, apparently. They call it Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD. Bee numbers have always waxed and waned, but the hive abandoning behavior is new. Some possible theories are mites, which have killed off bees in the past and have been found in the guts of dead bees; pesticides (organic growers say their bee populations have remained steady, while European farmers who have discontinued pesticide use still see smaller and fewer bee colonies); global warming; and cell phone interference causing bees to forget where they live.