GloryBee, Pure Clover Blend Honey, 100% US Grade A Honey, 5lb

I bought two jugs of this product. As many buyers complained, it arrived crystalized solid, it couldn't be poured out. Now, I know that all honey will crystalize if given time, so here is how I solved this: I placed the jug in a deep pan with a ceramic plate upside down at the bottom to protect the plastic jug, filled the pan with water up to the neck of the jug and put it on an electric hot plate at minimum setting. Allowed it to warm up for an hour or so to where you can almost not touch it (about 170 deg. F) and then let it stand for a couple of hours at around this temperature. The honey then returned to its normal liquid state and pours easily. This process is a bit of a nuisance, but it works. If you want to avoid the trouble, pay more for another brand. I also did the vinegar test and it showed that this honey is un-doctored and pure.

I have bought this honey several times over the years. It is really tasty and definitely real CLOVER honey. I have tried many different honeys (wildflower, alfalfa, etc) and Clover tastes best. This is delicious honey at a good price. My only issue is the jug itself, because if the honey crystallizes (as all honeys do eventually), it's impossible to get it out of the jug because the mouth of the jug is small and it's thick plastic. I tried (and tried and tried in the past). I tried cutting the top portion off the jug, but failed because the plastic is so thick and I needed to be careful that I didn't get tiny plastic cart particles inside the honey. I also tried putting it in the pan of hot water and it didn't work either. Because the jug is plastic, I didn't want to heat it up too much because I don't want to drive plastic molecules into the honey. so… I found a solution… When I received this jug of honey, I immediately transferred it to 8 oz sterilized Mason jars that I bought on Amazon. That way, if it crystallizes, I can easily access the honey through the wider mouthed shallower jar. And because it's glass, I can heat it safely if necessary. The jug exactly fills 7 of the 8 oz jars.

I saw a handful of negative reviews for this product, so I was a a bit curious how this honey would be when it arrived. You'll see my jug of honey is a Product of the USA, and also came with a safety seal under the lid; it isn't crystallized at all, and didn't leak either... so I'm pleased. The flavor tastes like honey. People who were saying their honey tastes like molasses-- it's possible! There is so much variation in honey! Again, it's made by bees from a field; embrace the variations! If your honey was marked as coming from a different region of the world, maybe it was just the right season for honey harvesting there at the time. Why do you assume that Ukranian or Indian beekeepers don't care for their bee colonies as well as American beekeepers do? Remember folks, honey is going to taste different season to season, year to year, bee colony to bee colony, bee to bee. Honey isn't a chemical that's manufactured in a factory with a strict recipe we can control-- this is a product made by insects, based on flowers that also vary season to season based on rain, soil, etc.. Embrace the variations. If it's crystallized, just remember that's normal. Honey crystalizes because it's *real!* It is not defective-- it's just a matter of how much fructose vs glucose the honey has in it, and again, that's all variable season to season, flower to flower, bee to bee. If you're worried about not being able to consume the whole jug of honey before it naturally crystalizes, consider pouring and storing it in some wide-mouth Bell Jars; that way if it does crystalize you can still get it out with a spoon. (Crystalized honey is perfectly safe to eat. Remember rock candy as a kid? That's crystalized table sugar. Crystalized honey is the same deal. Totally safe.) Happy honey-ing!

This review is for the 5-lb Clover Blend Grade A Honey. This is good honey. When it arrived it was significantly crystallized. The entire bottom of the jug was solidified and there were large crystals throughout the honey, affecting the taste and mouthfeel. The design of the jug it is sold in is very inefficient for honey because you cannot dip tools into the jar because the handle juts into the interior of the jug blocking everything under the neck of the bottle. I'm not sure why they chose this design over the half gallon milk jugs that you see honey sold in at farmers markets and from honey farms. I'm guessing it has something to do with shipping/handling because it's a very sturdy jug, it's just very poorly designed if you want to get honey out of it... Well those bees worked really hard to make this honey and you're going to have to work very hard to get the honey out of the jar too especially if it is crystallized which makes pouring it impossible. I soaked it for several hours in hot water in the sink, changing the water every 30 minutes, wasting a lot of water and energy to heat the water in the process. This seemed to work for loosening it up but large chunks of crystals remained suspended in the honey that would not dissolve no matter how much I heated the bottle. After a few days of sitting on the shelf at room temperature, the crystals that had gotten mixed up with the honey along with the air bubbles that had worked themselves in as I turned the bottle during the heat bath turned the entire contents of the jar into a thick, crystallized honey paste that was extremely unpalatable and you had to scrape it out of the jar and would not budge at all even if I held the jug upside down! Well... I had to repeat the process of heating the jug up in hot water in the sink until I could get it broken up, this time much more difficult than before because of it's uniform consistency. I had to really shake the bottle up between water changes.... then pouring all of it out into a pot on the stove and slowly heating it up until all of the crystals dissolved and it turned clear again. I cleaned the inside of the jug free of any remaining crystal gunk and let it completely dry out (probably losing 5%-10% of the honey in the process...) I thought about sticking the bottle in the microwave, but decided against it because I didn't want to melt the bottle or release any toxins into the honey just to save that little bit. I then returned the honey to the bottle carefully with a funnel. Honestly I might need to get my own container for storing this honey because this bottle is pretty terrible and I don't know what I'm going to do when it runs lower. I don't really like to heat my honey but I bought 5lbs of Grade A honey and what I got was really not usable until all of this work. I really want to give this product a better review but I can't after I had to go through this much work/waste to make it usable.

I don't normally write reviews that are somewhat negative, but felt this was an opportunity to provide some information for other folks who purchase this honey. The honey was almost solid sugar when I received it. Of course with honey. That's usually not a problem because you can warm it up and reconstitute it back into a liquid which I did using my microwave. Keep this in mind when you purchase from this company is you may wonder what to do with it. If you've never had this happen. Just stick it in the microwave and warm it up. Don't make the plastic jug too hot as it may tend to melt.