Raw Organic Honey

 What can there be said about honey that hasn’t been said already? The stuff of legends and numerous historical accounts, read on to learn more about this truly miraculous substance!

 Honey is the term used to describe a sweet and viscous liquid that is produced by honeybees and some other species of bees, and is typically derived from flower nectar. The United States National Honey Board and various other international food regulatory bodies further define honey as being a pure product that does not include the addition of any other substances, such as water or other sweeteners. This article is primarily concerned with honey as it is produced by honey bees of the genus Apis. Raw organic honey that comes from other varieties of bees and other insects have very different properties.

 The sweetness of honey comes mainly from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose and it has about the same relative sweetness as granulated sugar. Honey has a number of chemical properties that make it ideal for baking, and a unique flavor that makes it a better alternative to sugar and other sweeteners for many people.

 While most micro-organisms do not typically grow in honey owing to its low water activity of 0.6, keep in mind that honey often contains dormant endospores of the Clostridium botulinum bacteria, which can be dangerous to infants. These endospores can transform into bacteria that produce toxins harmful to the intestinal tract of infants, a condition that can lead to illness and even death.

 Floral sources of honey are determined by a study of the pollens and spores in raw honey called melissopalynology. This procedure works primarily because bees are known to carry an electrostatic charge that can actually attract other particles. In this same manner,  melissopalynology can be used in the environmental studies of radioactive particles, dust, or particle pollution.

 The process of collecting nectar in order to make honey actually serves an important function for flowers in that it results in pollination, which is crucial for the propagation of flowering plants.

 With over harvesting of honey from the beehives, the bees may actually be put at risk. It is for this reason that most beekeepers encourage the overproduction of honey so that only the excess honey is taken. In fact, when the source of food for the bees is in short supply, beekeepers often resort to giving bees supplementary nutrition.

 Honey is actually used by bees as a source of food for times of cold weather or when food supplies are scarce. They then rely on this stored honey as a source of energy. By allowing a swarm of bees to tale up residence in a hive, people have somehow managed to semi-domesticate these valuable insects. The hive itself typically contains three types of bees: the sole queen bee, drone bees that serve to fertilize new queens and whose numbers tend to vary by season, and from 20,000 to 40,000 worker bees.

 The primary function of the worker bees is to raise larvae and to collect the nectar that will later be made into honey. They then go out of the hive, collect the flower nectar which is rich in sugar, release their store of Nasonov pheromones and return to the hive. These pheromones allow other bees in the colony to later find their way to same site where the nectar was found purely by smell. Nasonov pheromones are also released at the entrance of the hive, in order to ensure that returning bees will return to the proper hive.

 Back in the hive, the bees use their "honey stomachs" in the ingesting and regurgitating of the nectar several times until it is partly digested. The bees work together in this task until the honey reaches the desired level of quality, after which it is stored in the honeycomb. This is done carefully since nectar typically has high levels of water content as well as natural yeasts, both of which when left unchecked, will cause the sugars in the liquid to ferment.

 After the honey has been subjected to the final regurgitation step, the honeycomb is left unsealed to allow the bees inside the hive to dry as much water from the honey as possible by evaporation. These bees fan their wings continuously, producing a strong draft across the honeycomb that will aid in the process. Aside from raising the sugar concentration in the honey, this procedure also serves to reduce its water content, which in turn prevents fermentation. When done properly, the resulting ripe honey can be removed from the hive by the beekeeper and enjoy a long shelf life free of fermentation.

 Honey is actually made up of a mixture of sugars and other compounds. In terms of carbohydrate content, honey is made mostly of fructose (of which it has about 38.5%) and glucose (of which it has about 31.0%). This makes honey quite similar to synthetically produced inverted sugar syrup which contains about 48% fructose, 47% glucose, and 5% sucrose.