The detection of the quality of honey and the differentiation of adulteration are very important for quality and safety assurance. Traditionally used chemical methods were expensive and complicated, therefore they are not suitable for the requirement of wide-scale detection. In the past decade, the detection technology of honey developed with a trend of fast and high throughput detection. Spectroscopy has the fast and non-contact characteristic, and was widely used in petrifaction. This technology also has the potential for application in honey analysis. In the present study, the progress in quantitative and qualitative analysis of honey by near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) and mid infrared spectroscopy (MIR) is reviewed. The application of this two spectroscopy methods to honey detection refers to several aspects, such as quality control analysis, determination of botanical origin, determination of geographical origin and detection of adulteration. The detailed information of the detection of honey by NIR and MIR spectroscopy was analyzed, containing detection principle, technology path, accuracy, influence factors, and the development trend.