The argument over why honey is so sticky has been settled, and it seems both sides were right all along.

Sugar molecules do and don't slow down the water molecules in this viscous fluid, according to an international team of researchers. It just depends on who you ask.

Australian researcher Associate Professor Glenn Hefter of Murdoch University in Perth and colleagues report how in the Journal of Chemical Physics.

Larson says the contradictory findings in previous research are not contradictory at all.

He says they are a result of different researchers measuring different kinds of water molecule movement.

Some researchers say that such fluids are sticky because sugar molecules slow down the water molecules, says chemist Dr Ian Larson of Monash University in Melbourne.