Stingless Bee Honey: Evidence and Safety

Quick safety points

• Never give any honey to a baby under 12 months, including stingless bee honey. CDC says honey can cause infant botulism and should not be added to a baby's food, water, formula or pacifier. [3] Australia's food regulator reached the same view for native stingless bee honey: infants are at risk from honey with Clostridium botulinum spores, whichever bee made it. [1][2]
• Stingless bee honey carries the same allergy cautions as other honey. It may contain pollen, propolis or a royal-jelly-like secretion, and some people are allergic to these. The regulator found nothing to suggest the risk is higher or lower than with honeybee honey. [1]
• It is wetter than honeybee honey, so it ferments more easily. In the Australian assessment, fermentation was judged self-limiting and unlikely to cause illness, but sealed bottles can build up pressure. Hygiene at harvest matters. [1]
• It is still mostly sugar. Australian samples had about 62 to 66 g of sugar per 100 g. [1] We did not read any human study of how it affects blood sugar, so people managing diabetes should ask a clinician. See honey, blood sugar and diabetes.
• Do not put jar honey of any kind on a wound in place of medical care. The one wound trial we read used honey as a study dressing in patients being followed by researchers, not honey from a jar. [10] See medical-grade honey and wound care.
• Pregnancy, breastfeeding, children over 12 months, medicines and surgery: not described in the sources we read. See pregnancy and breastfeeding.

What stingless bee honey is

Stingless bees are a group of bees (the tribe Meliponini) that do not sting in the usual way. They are not honeybees, which belong to the genus Apis. [1] Different regions have different species: Tetragonula and Austroplebeia in Australia, Heterotrigona, Geniotrigona and Tetragonula in Southeast Asia, and Melipona and Scaptotrigona in Latin America. [1][6][14]

The names vary by place. In Malaysia it is called kelulut honey. In Australia it is often called sugarbag honey, and the regulator calls it "native bee honey". Researchers also use "meliponine honey" and "pot-honey", because stingless bees store honey in small wax pots, not in a honeycomb. [1] Colonies are small. Australian hives make very little, about 1 kg per hive per year, so the honey is scarce and often costly. [1]

The bees collect nectar and, in some cases, honeydew (sweet plant-sucking insect secretions). A Malaysian study compared kelulut honey from honeydew and from flower nectar and found them different in acidity and moisture. [25]

How it differs from honeybee honey

Reviews and the Australian regulator describe the same pattern. Numbers vary a lot by bee species, plants, season and handling. [4][6]

Trehalulose is a sugar made of glucose and fructose joined in a different way from table sugar. The Australian regulator found no evidence of harm from eating it; the animal data it cites were from rats. Its effect on blood sugar in people was not tested in anything we read. [1]

A meta-analysis found stingless bee honey had more total phenols (plant chemicals) and higher antioxidant test scores than honeybee honey. These are lab measures, not health outcomes. [5]

Food use and how it differs from medical use

In kitchens and markets, stingless bee honey is a food: a tart, thinner honey; a panel of 30 people rated Australian samples more sour than manuka honey. [8] In Malaysia it is sold under a national standard for kelulut honey (MS 2683:2017). [1][9] Clinical trials have also used it in medical ways: as a wound dressing, a mouth rinse, or a daily supplement. A trial of one product does not carry over to another, and none of these trials tested honey from a jar. What they tested is described below.

Traditional use (not proof)

• Australia: the Australian regulator records that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a long history of using honey from native stingless bees (Tetragonula) for food and for medicine. [1] The sources we read do not list which ailments, so we do not list them either.
• Mexico and the Maya region: in Michoacán, local people value several stingless bee species for honey as food and for honey and pollen as medicine, and they gather the honey from wild nests. [14] A 2023 preprint (not yet peer reviewed) frames Melipona honeys as part of Mayan and Totonac beekeeping and says they are used traditionally for stomach, breathing and other problems. [17] A 2024 survey of 56 beekeepers in the Yucatán Peninsula mentions the link between meliponiculture and Maya communities only as background. [16]
• Bhutan: interviews with stingless beekeepers and traditional healers documented 22 uses of the honey across food, medicine, veterinary care, crafts and religion. [15]
• Malaysia: kelulut honey is sold under a national standard, but the sources we read do not describe traditional medical use there.

Traditional use shows that people have used this honey for a long time. It does not show that it treats any condition.

What research shows

Human research is very small. We found three randomized trials, each with fewer than 75 people, and no peer-reviewed systematic review of human trials. (A 2025 preprint review on wound use turned up in our search; we did not read it, so we do not use it.)

The studies used different products (Kelulut, Trigona, a rinse), so their results cannot be added together. The 2024 review of stroke cognition ended with the authors saying how the honey might act is still limited. [26]

Lab findings. In Australia, honey from Tetragonula carbonaria, T. hockingsi and Austroplebeia australis stopped growth of bacteria and fungi in test tubes. The honey from T. carbonaria kept some of this effect after heating and after 18 years of storage. [13] That is a lab result and does not show that eating or applying honey treats infections. Rodent studies of kelulut honey for weight, blood sugar and memory exist, but we did not read their full reports and give no claims.

Proper evidence not found in the sources we read for stingless bee honey as a treatment for cough, diabetes, stomach problems, immunity or cancer.

Forms and why they matter

• Raw (strained) honey: the usual form. It is drained from the wax pots by gravity or spinning and filtered to remove debris. Its water content can be high enough to ferment. [1]
• Dehydrated or dehumidified honey: some producers remove water by vacuum drying, freeze-drying or warm-air dryers. In a review of these methods, each took moisture to under 17% and water activity under 0.6, with HMF (a marker of heat damage) under 40 mg/kg; the effect on taste and benefits depends on the method. [19] Dehumidifying also raised trehalulose in one Indonesian study. [20]
• Heated or pasteurized honey: heating limits fermentation. In one test of heated Tetragonula honey stored for 40 days at 30 degrees C, heat changed color, antioxidant measures and HMF, and every sample passed the national HMF limit by day 40. [21]
• Refrigerated or frozen honey: the Australian assessment lists refrigeration, pasteurization, dehydration and maturation as methods used to control yeasts and bacteria. [1]
• Dressings, rinses, capsules and creams: products named in trials or sold online. Their make-up is not standard, and the trials we read do not tell us what a shop product contains.

Safety and cautions

• Babies under 12 months: no honey of any kind. [1][3]
• Allergy and asthma: honey may contain pollen, propolis and a royal-jelly-like secretion; some people are allergic. [1] See bee products and allergy warning signs. We did not find a stingless-bee-specific allergy study.
• Blood sugar: honey is a sugar food; the sources we read give no human blood sugar data for this honey.
• Raw and unpasteurized honey: raw is not a safety feature. Spores of C. botulinum may be present in honey from any bee, and the Australian assessment says harvest should follow good hygiene. [1] Fermented honey, with foam, bubbles, a sour or alcohol smell, or a bulging lid, has begun to change; the regulator judged this unlikely to make people ill, but we have no advice on whether a particular jar is safe to eat. The alcohol level reached 0.2 to 0.6% after 180 days in one Brazilian study. [1]
• Contaminants: one assessment cited tests of Australian and Malaysian stingless bee honey that found low or negligible pesticide, herbicide and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon levels. [1] A comparison of 36 samples found toxic elements well below Codex limits. [6] Plant-derived toxins in honey were discussed for honey in general, with no evidence of higher risk here. [1]
• Wounds and medicines: do not replace medical care for wounds. Interactions with medicines, pregnancy, breastfeeding, children over 12 months, kidney and liver disease and surgery are not described in the sources we read.

Quality and buying

• Standards are still catching up. Codex Standard CXS 12-1981 for honey sets moisture at no more than 20% (heather honey excepted) and glucose plus fructose at no less than 60 g per 100 g. [2] A 2022 comparison of 36 honeys from four stingless bee species in Malaysia and Australia found every sample failed Codex limits for moisture, free acidity and glucose plus fructose. [6] Researchers in several countries have asked for a separate global standard. [4][6]
• Australia: after an application from the Australian Native Bee Association, the food regulator approved a new standard for "native bee honey" in April 2024. It requires at least 50% reducing sugars, no more than 28% moisture and at least 2% trehalulose, and the label must describe the honey as native bee honey. [2]
• Malaysia has its own kelulut standard, MS 2683:2017. A study of 43 Heterotrigona itama samples found they met the Malaysian standard on moisture, pH and sugars but not the Codex limits. [9]
• Brazil has state rules for Melipona honey, and a 2026 study proposes a national technical regulation. [1][24]
• Adulteration: researchers have proposed trehalulose as an authenticity marker, though its level varies widely by region (0 to 40 g per 100 g in Indonesian samples). [20] A 2025 study of 104 samples found mannitol (a sugar alcohol) in all of them and proposed it as another marker to spot adulteration. [22] The sources we read do not give how common adulteration is. See honey adulteration, labels and how to choose.
• Practical: because composition varies, a very runny honey is not necessarily watered down. A label that names the bee species, country and harvest date gives more to go on than a general claim.
• Immature honey: a 2026 review says natural yeasts in honey are normal and only active fermentation is a defect. [18]

Related pages

• Honey and infant botulism
• Bee products and allergy warning signs
• Medical-grade honey and wound care
• Check before you use bee products: who should be careful
• Honey adulteration, labels and how to choose
• Tualang honey
• Pregnancy and breastfeeding