Our laboratory

Analysis carried out by our laboratory :

Our laboratory was created in 1973 and is a precious source of information and expertise. The mission of our team of 11 technicians and engineers is to select the best honeys and products of the hive, but also to check that they have kept their original properties. To fulfil this mission, they must have not only extensive knowledge of the products of the hive, but also suitable analysis equipment.

Even going back thousands of years, honey has always been produced in the same way: it results from a true alchemy between bees and flower nectar. It is a natural product, but also a complex one because its composition is dependent on a large number of factors such as the flowers from which the pollen and nectar are gathered (rosemary honey, clover honey or acacia honey), the geographic area and the nature of the soil (lavender honey from Provence, honey from Catalonia or honey from the Argentine pampas), the topography (mountain honey or Garrigue honey), the season (spring honey or summer honey), but also the climate, the species of bees, etc. There is therefore an infinite variety of honeys in the world.

However, a multitude of analyses provide us with information on many indicators and make it possible to guarantee the floral and geographic origin, the purity and the freshness of the honeys selected.

The very first analysis carried out is the one that delights the senses: the organoleptic or sensory analysis. Like the great “noses” of the perfume industry and like oenologists, after a long period of training, tasters can recognise not only the flowers from which the pollen and nectar were gathered, but also the regions in which the honeys were collected. This is because honeys not only differ in colour (from pale yellow to dark brown), but also in their aromatic complexity: there are sweet, subtle, mellow honeys like acacia honey, honeys with hints of vanilla like rhododendron honey, full-bodied honeys with a lot of character like chestnut honey, whose bitterness in the back of the mouth won’t leave you indifferent or, like heather honey with its hints of spices, honeys with warm hints of caramel and liquorice like fir-tree honey, fresh honeys like lime-tree honey with its hints of menthol, surprising honeys like the spicy thyme honey or strawberry-tree honey with hints of phenol that mask the sweet sensation. Without forgetting mixed-flower honeys in which a plethora of aromas mix together to form infinite, original flavours.

The 3 melissopalynologists who work in the laboratory don’t just do a job, they live out a real passion. They’re able to identify all the flowers visited by the bees by observing the honey under a microscope. This is because, by a strange coincidence, honey contains its own certificate of origin. By visiting the flowers, and thus incidentally allowing them to be pollinated, the bees shake the stamens and scatter millions of pollen grains, a large proportion of which end up in the nectar that the bees suck up, and therefore in the honey. Pollen grains are microscopic cells whose morphology is typical of a floral species. In a way, they represent flowers’ identity cards. After a long period of training and with a lot of experience, specialists can therefore associate the shape of a grain with the name of a flower and thus guarantee a honey’s floral and geographic origin, simply by observing the honey under a microscope.

Then, numerous other biological and physico-chemical tests (such as the moisture content, the HMF content, the acidities, the spectrum of sugars, the electrical conductivity, the amylase content or a test to look for the presence of bee saliva, etc.) are carried out on the honey, the royal jelly and the propolis. The results are interpreted, validated and recorded.
All these analyses allow us to guarantee the purity and authenticity of the products of the hive.

Monique Morlot, Manager of our laboratory :

« I came to the company to inspect the quality of all our honeys. For me, being a melissopalynologist isn’t a job, it’s a real passion! Even today, we’re still discovering new pollens. You have to know that it takes a minimum of 5 years of regular practice to recognise the different pollens. There are as many honeys as there are melliferous flowers. What’s more, the collections are different each season. Honey is a natural product that’s comparable to wine. Its taste, its colour and its texture change from one flower to another, from one region to another and from one season to another. ».