How is Honey Made

How is Honey Made?
Honey starts out as nectar in flowers, which is harvested by honeybees and then turned into honey. Nectar is a sugar-rich liquid, comprising about 80% water, coupled with complex sugars, and is produced in plants by the nectaries glands. Some examples of the sources of nectar in North America, are flowers like clovers, dandelions, berry bushes and fruit tree blossoms. In a typical honeybee society, it is the worker bees that collect the nectar, and raise the larvae. Most hives contain one female queen bee, a seasonally variable number of male drone bees to fertilize new queens, and approximately 20,000 to 40,000 female worker bees.

Process of Making Honey
The worker bees use their long, tube-like tongues to suck nectar out of flowers and plants, which they then collect in their 'honey stomachs'. Bees are perfectly equipped to carry out this job, as in addition to the regular stomach, they have a stomach (the honey stomach), which is meant especially to store the nectar they collect. The honey stomach has the capacity to store almost 70 mg of nectar and when full, almost equals the weight of the bee. On an average, honeybees visit between 100 and 1500 flowers, in order to fill their honey stomachs.

Once the bees return to the hive with the nectar, it is then passed on to the other worker bees, who suck the nectar from the honeybee's stomach using their mouths. They then 'chew' the nectar for a while, and this is when the bees' digestive enzymes break down the complex sugars into simple sugars. This ensures that the honey stored within the hive, is easily digestible for the bees, and less likely to be attacked by bacteria. It is then stored in cells throughout the honey comb. At this point, the nectar still has a fairly high water content, which causes the natural yeasts to ferment the sugars. Thus, the next stage in the process of making honey has all the bees fanning the nectar with their wings, which creates a draft and helps the excess water to evaporate. The nectar thus becomes thicker, and the high sugar concentration prevents fermentation. The honey at this stage is called ripe honey, and if removed from the hive and properly sealed, can have a long shelf life. The bees then seal off the cells with wax and the honey is stored until needed.

Packaging of Honey
While we are most accustomed to see honey available as bottles of golden syrup, it is also available in some other forms. In one of the forms, called comb honey, entire pieces of honey heavy combs are sold, as well as honey in jars with a few chunks of the honeycomb included. Organic honey, often considered the purest form, is made according to strict regulations. Other forms of honey are crystallized honey, pasteurized honey, raw honey, strained honey, ultrafiltered honey, whipped honey and dried honey.

Bees create honey as a food for lean times. In seasons when food is scarce, they use this stored honey to sustain themselves. A colony of bees eats between 120 to 200 pounds of honey annually. Commercial beekeepers house honeybees in hives, boxes, or other receptacles. They encourage overproduction of honey within the hive, and harvest the excess honey without putting the bees in danger. Beekeeping is catching on as a hobby as well, with an increasing number of people, who have an active interest in ecology and natural science, owning a few hives. If beekeeping piques your interest, and you are wondering how to start beekeeping, there are plenty of books available, as well as information on the Internet about how to make honey. Armed with the information on beekeeping techniques, and the right equipment, you can make your own honey.

The health benefits of honey are abundant, as is its nutritional value. Honey is also an important ingredient in foods and beverages such as tea. Some of our favorite meals, such as pancakes and waffles, would certainly be incomplete without it.