Three jars of honey side by side, one clear and golden, one half crystallized with a pale grainy layer, one fully crystallized and opaque, on a wooden table with a dipper and a bowl of warm water

Does Honey Expire? No, and Here Is Why, What the Crystals Mean, and the One Way to Ruin It

Honey is the one thing in the pantry with no expiration date in any meaningful sense. Sealed jars have kept for very long stretches, and while the Egyptian-tomb story is oft-repeated and its evidentiary status is disputed, the point stands: properly sealed honey does not spoil. The reasons are chemistry rather than folklore, and knowing them explains everything else people search about the jar: why it crystallizes, whether that is bad, how to fix it, what the date on the label is for, and the one real safety rule. Our honey guide covers what is in the jar and how to choose it; this page answers what happens to it afterward.

Why honey does not spoil

Three facts about honey make it nearly impossible for anything to grow in it. It is very low in water, about 17 percent, and what water it has is bound tightly to sugar, so bacteria and most yeasts cannot get enough to live; a food scientist would say its water activity is below the threshold for microbial growth. It is acidic, with a pH around 3.9, which few microbes tolerate. And the bees add an enzyme, glucose oxidase, that in the presence of a little moisture slowly produces hydrogen peroxide, a mild antiseptic, which is one reason honey has been used on wounds for as long as there have been wounds. Between the dryness, the acid and the peroxide, a sealed jar is a place nothing can live. Our honey history has the wound dressings and the archaeological record.

Then what is the date on the jar?

A best-by date, required by retailers and by law in some markets, and set by the producer at two to five years from bottling. It is a quality suggestion, not a safety limit. What changes with time in a sealed jar is subtle: the aroma softens, the color darkens a little, and the flavor of a delicate honey, an acacia or an orange blossom, loses some of its top notes. A robust honey, chestnut or buckwheat, hardly changes. A ten-year-old jar is safe and still honey; it is simply less fragrant than it was.

Crystallization: what it is and why it is not spoilage

Honey is a supersaturated solution of two sugars, glucose and fructose, holding more sugar than water can normally dissolve. Glucose is the less soluble of the two, and over time it comes out of solution as fine crystals, which is what turns a clear jar cloudy, then grainy, then solid. This is not decay, not fermentation and not contamination. It is sugar returning to its natural state, and it happens faster in honeys with more glucose relative to fructose, faster in raw honey that still contains pollen and tiny wax particles for crystals to form around, and fastest at cool room temperature, around 50 to 60°F. A crystallized honey is exactly as good as it was; some people prefer it, and creamed honey is simply honey crystallized on purpose with a fine, even grain.

Honey Glucose relative to fructose Tendency to crystallize Typical time to set, raw, at room temperature
Acacia (robinia) Low Very slow A year or more; often never
Tupelo, sage Low Very slow A year or more
Chestnut Low to medium Slow Six months to a year
Orange blossom, lavender Medium Moderate Two to six months
Wildflower, most blends Medium Moderate One to four months
Clover, alfalfa High Fast Weeks to two months
Rapeseed, dandelion, ivy Very high Very fast Days to weeks; sold creamed

How to fix crystallized honey without ruining it

Gently. Stand the jar, lid loosened, in a bowl of warm water, around 100 to 110°F, warm to the hand and no hotter, and leave it for twenty to forty minutes, stirring once or twice, until the crystals dissolve. Replace the water if it cools. That is the whole method. Do not microwave it, which heats unevenly, boils pockets and cooks the honey; do not put it in a pan on the stove; and do not heat it above about 120°F, because heat destroys the enzymes and volatile aromas that make a raw honey worth buying and pushes it toward the flat, caramel-tinged taste of pasteurized supermarket honey. A honey will re-crystallize after warming, usually more slowly the second time; if you would rather not repeat the bath, eat it as it is or keep it somewhere warmer.

How to store honey

Sealed, at room temperature, out of direct sun, in the jar it came in. A dry cupboard is ideal. Do not refrigerate it; cold speeds crystallization and does nothing for keeping. Keep the lid tight and the rim clean, because the only thing that can harm honey is water getting in: honey is hygroscopic and pulls moisture from the air, and a jar left open in a humid kitchen or contaminated with a wet spoon can, over months, take on enough water for wild yeasts to ferment it, which is how mead was discovered and how a jar goes sour and fizzy. If a honey smells alcoholic or foams, that is what happened. Dry spoon, tight lid, and it will outlast the cupboard.

The one real rule: no honey for infants under one year

Honey can contain dormant spores of Clostridium botulinum, which are harmless to older children and adults because a mature gut keeps them from germinating, but which can grow in an infant's digestive system and cause infant botulism, a rare and serious illness. Pediatric guidance in the United States and elsewhere is unambiguous: no honey, raw or pasteurized, cooked or not, for babies under twelve months. This applies to honey in baked goods and on pacifiers as well as from the spoon. It is the only safety rule honey has, and it is not negotiable.

Short answers to the rest

Can honey go moldy? Not in a sealed jar; mold on the rim is from moisture and crumbs at the lid, and the honey below is fine once the rim is cleaned. Does raw honey last as long as pasteurized? Yes; it crystallizes sooner, which is not the same thing. Is dark honey older honey? No, color comes from the flowers; chestnut is dark from the day it is made. Can you use honey that has separated into layers? Yes, stir it. Does honey need to be thrown out after opening? No; an opened jar with a clean lid keeps as long as a sealed one.

The honeys on our shelf, from the fast-setting to the ones that stay liquid for years, are at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. Denver's dry air is honey's friend; the storage guide covers the rest of the cupboard.

Sources & Further Reading

Back to blog