What is "Honeydew Honey" and is it Kosher?

Bees collect a sugary liquid material secreted by aphids and some scale insects. This substance is known as honeydew. Honeydew is collected by bees and transformed into a dark strong honey, which is called honeydew honey. Both Rabbi Belsky, zt”l and Rabbi Schachter, ybc”l maintained that honeydew honey is not kosher. This is the case according to both opinions cited in the Gemara to allow bee-honey. Chachamim consider bee honey as kosher because it is not a secretion of the bee. While honeydew honey is the same, nonetheless, the base of the product, honeydew, is a non-kosher material, which remains non-kosher even when transformed into honey. Rebbi Yaakov derives that honey is kosher from a Talmudic exegesis of a verse in Vayikra (11:21). We do not have a basis to apply this allowance to honeydew honey, which is the byproduct of a non-kosher insect.

The Gerald & Karin Feldhamer OU Kosher Halacha Yomis is dedicated to the memory of Rav Yisroel Belsky, zt”l, who served as halachic consultant for OU Kosher for more than 28 years; many of the responses in Halacha Yomis are based on the rulings of Rabbi Belsky. Subscribe to the Halacha Yomis daily email here.