What is Honey really and how is it made?

Honey…Loved by millions all over the world. Known for its health benefits and healing properties. The golden wonder of the natural world. But what is honey really? “By definition, honey is the natural sweet substance, produced by honey bees from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants, or excretions of plant- sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which the bees collect, transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store and leave in honeycombs to ripen and mature.”

Honey bees are incredible little creatures. As a beekeeper, I can watch the bees for hours, and every time I am around the hives in one of the apiaries, I feel a sense of humbleness when I see the ladies buzzing in and out of the hives. Their ability to produce this golden substance is just mind blowing. But how do they produce this beloved substance that we call honey? And why do they produce honey? Firstly, honey bees do not really produce honey for us…they produce honey for themselves! That is always their first priority. This is because the honey they produce is actually their own food source.

We always make sure that the well – being of the bees comes first, and always make sure that our bee colonies have enough resources for their own use inside the hives. Never taking more than what is required. The honey that the bees produce inside the hives are their source of Carbohydrates. It is what gives them the energy to work. It is also stored inside the honeycomb as reserves when food sources are scares, like in the winter months or during a dearth, when there are less or no flowering plants to forage from. Think of it as the bees’ “emergency pantry”. Foraging worker bees leave the hive in the morning, searching for flowers from which they collect nectar. The nectar is sucked up through a special tongue, called a proboscis, and then stored inside a special honey stomach. Inside the honey stomach, enzymes immediately start breaking down the nectar into simpler sugars. Once the bees’ honey stomach is full the worker bee returns to the hive.

Inside the hive the forager bee passes the nectar, mouth – to – mouth, to a younger house (or nurse -) bee. The house bees will pass the nectar to other house bees, and as they do this the sugars are broken down even further and the moisture content in the nectar is reduced. The house bees now deposit the nectar in hexagonal wax cells in the honeycomb. By fanning their wings over the nectar, the house bees now evaporates the moisture content in the nectar even further. Once the moisture content is below 20 – 18%, the nectar is ripe. This ripen nectar is what we call honey. The house bees will now cap the cells with a wax capping and the honey is now ready for consumption or left as reserves to be used later by the colony. So, next time you eat honey, spare a thought for the honey bees that produces this golden, wonderful substance.