Every winter we get the same message: "My honey has gone hard and sugary, is it fake?" Almost always, no. It's just doing what real honey does.

Honey is a supersaturated sugar solution, mostly glucose and fructose. Glucose doesn't dissolve easily, and over time it separates out as tiny crystals, especially when the jar sits somewhere cool. Honey that's high in glucose, like most natural honey, crystallizes faster than honey high in fructose. Neither one is "better," it's just chemistry.

The honey sold in most supermarkets stays liquid for a year or more because it's heated and micro-filtered, which slows crystallization but also strips out some of the pollen and enzymes. Ours isn't processed that way, so it will crystallize eventually, sometimes within a few weeks in winter.

If you want it runny again, stand the jar in a bowl of warm water for 15-20 minutes and stir. Don't microwave it. That gets hot enough to damage the stuff that makes raw honey worth buying in the first place.