Walgreen's, as in the drug store? When Texas A&M University tested honeys bought from a variety of stores, Walgreen's was one of those in which 100% of the honey on their shelves had no pollen whatsoever. Specifically, Walgreen's MEL-O Honey was one of them. Pollen is only removed with ultrafiltration. The bottlers say that's done to improve shelf life, but standard filtration removes debris, bee parts, etc. and is all that is needed. An industry expert says the only reason to remove pollen is to remove the ability to test to identify honey from places where it might be questionable, meaning China. Conscientious makers use pollen testing to weed out honey that has been transshipped through a third country, and they won't buy honey that has had the pollen removed, because Chinese honey is sometimes sent through another country where the pollen is filtered out before moving to the U.S. Like so much from China, including the orange concentrate in orange "juice," their honey may be chemically corrupt and may contain various animal antibiotics. Walgreen's and most other drug and grocery chains refuse to say where their honey comes from. But there's only one reason to spend the extra money on ultrafiltration. Busy Bee and Sue Bee are also sans pollen. Even Winnie the Pooh brand is suspect. Honey is a dirty business. Many specialty honeys are found to be falsely labeled. FDA does not police honey. Buy local.
