Honey is the product produced by bees after the hive has processed the nectar collected from nearby plants. Honey is a source of food for bees, and other organisms like humans, but it is often overproduced and the hive can’t use all of it. To deal with this, bees will store the extra honey in combs which can be harvested and sold. The cost of honey varies greatly based on the number of plant species used by the bees, the uniqueness of the flowers, and the type of bees producing the honey. As a result of the large number of factors that go into judging the quality of honey, it is very easy to defraud customers and charge more than the honey should be worth. The quality of honey can be judged by genetically sequencing the honey to identify the source of the nectar used by the bees. DNA metabarcoding, using the chloroplast trnL intron, will be used to identify the source of the pollen in honey obtained from local southern Utah producers. Native flora of southern Utah is expected to be seen in the DNA metabarcoding results if the honey is in fact produced in this area. If it is marketed as being produced locally and there is no evidence of native southern Utah flora, it can be assumed that the honey was not produced here. With the DNA metabarcoding results, the number and uniqueness of the flora can also be determined to give a hint at the quality of the honey. The species detected helps determine which flora are preferred among the local bees. This allows the community to continue planting and taking care of these local flora to better produce quality honey and healthier hives.
