How is Honey Made?

How is Honey Made?

An Impressive Substance 

Honey is liquid gold! It’s incredibly delicious and utterly impressive in so may ways. Honey is anti-bacterial and has an insanely long shelf-life. It has been found in Egyptian tombs dating back roughly 3,000 years and is considered still edible! The Egyptians even used it in their mummification processes due to its highly effective preservative qualities. In Mesopotamia, honey was also used as a medicine to prevent bacterial infections in wounds and soothe certain stomach pains. Today it is still used as a natural treatment for stomach ulcers and is highly effective in alleviating seasonal allergies when the honey is locally sourced for whomever is consuming it. 

However, SQUEAMISH BEWARE! The process to make this incredible liquid gold, while utterly fascinating, is not the loveliest to hear about.

A Surprising Process

Surprisingly, bees actually have two stomachs. One is used to consume their food while the other acts as a sort of storage container for the nectar from flowers. In order to fill this second stomach to compacity, a bee may travel to nearly 1,000 different flowers, pollinating as they go. Digestive enzymes in the bee’s special stomach immediately begin working on the nectar, breaking it down from its complex form into a simple sugar. Once the worker bee returns to her hive, she then passes on the digesting nectar via regurgitation into another bee, who takes it into their second stomach to add more digestive enzymes to the liquid. This process repeats as that bee will pass on the nectar to another, then another, breaking the nectar down more and more each time it is passed through regurgitation. Once the honey has been processed to a suitable level, it is deposited into a honeycomb cell where it is then thickened by worker bees batting their wings to reduce the moisture in the nectar down to at least 20%. Once this step is complete, the cell is sealed off with wax to allow the nectar to fully ferment into honey.

Harnessing the Golden Power

To make a pound of honey, over ten thousand worker bees will travel roughly seventy thousand miles and collect nectar from up to eight million flowers. In a single year, a lone beehive can produce roughly 30-100 pounds of honey. This drastic production of honey is typically far more than the hive needs. In fact, on average, bees will produce approximately two to three times more honey than necessary, which is what beekeepers will then collect. This ensures the comfortable survival of the hive while also providing us with a delicious golden treat.

Citations

15 Honey Facts Worth Buzzing About (2018) Mental Floss. Available at: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/68528/15-honey-facts-worth-buzzing-about (Accessed: June 2020).

Hanson, J. Ph. D (2016) How Do Bee’s Make Honey?, YouTube. It’s Okay To Be Smart. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ1EjDLJCmg (Accessed: June 2020).

Honey in the Pyramids (2015) National Geographic. Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/history/honey-in-the-pyramids.aspx  (Accessed: June 2020)