Honey

Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, most famously honey bees. Bees create honey to feed their colonies, gathering and refining sugary plant nectar or insect secretions like the honeydew from aphids. This process involves regurgitation and enzymatic changes, followed by storage in the hive where water evaporates, making the honey thick and long-lasting.

Honey is stored in structures called honeycomb, made of wax and filled with hexagonal cells. While honey bees use honeycomb, other bees, such as the stingless bee, store honey in pots made from wax and resin. Humans obtain honey either from wild bee colonies or from domesticated bee hives. The practice of raising bees for honey is known as beekeeping or apiculture, and cultivating stingless bees is called meliponiculture.

Honey is sweet because it contains large amounts of the sugars fructose and glucose, offering similar sweetness to sucrose, or table sugar. A single tablespoon of honey provides about 180 kilojoules (43 kilocalories) of food energy. Its high sugar content and acidic pH prevent many microorganisms from growing, so when stored properly, honey does not spoil. Archaeologists have even found ancient samples that are still edible after thousands of years.

The use of honey dates back to prehistoric times. Cave paintings in Cuevas de la Araña in Spain show people collecting honey over 8,000 years ago. While the common honey bee Apis mellifera originated in the Old World, many Mayans in the New World have long practiced the cultivation of stingless bees since pre-Columbian times.

Formation

Honey is made by bees who collect nectar or honeydew. Bees need honey for energy, especially when they are flying to find food or when they are preparing to survive the winter. When bees gather nectar, they also use some of it to help them fly. Most of the nectar they collect is processed inside the hive, where other bees help to change it into honey by mixing it and removing water.

Beetles collect nectar or honeydew and carry it back to the hive. Inside the hive, bees mix the nectar and let it dry out by moving air over it. This removes water and turns the nectar into thick honey. The bees then store the honey in special honeycomb cells and cover it with wax to keep it safe. Honey can last a very long time because its low water content stops harmful germs from growing.

By other insects

Honey bees are not the only insects that make honey. Many types of bumblebees and some wasps also produce honey. These insects collect nectar and change it into honey to use as food.

Human intervention

People have helped bees by giving them places to live, like special boxes called Langstroth hives. When bees are ready to start a new group, or "swarm", people can catch them and put them in these boxes. The bees then stay in one place and make honey that people can collect. Even though bees can leave at any time, people work hard to keep them in these boxes by giving them more space to build their honeycomb. This way, people get honey, pollen, wax, and other useful materials from the bees.

Production

Honey is collected from wild bee colonies or from domesticated beehives. On average, a hive will produce about 29 kilograms (65 lb) of honey per year. Beekeepers use a bee smoker to calm the bees before taking the honeycomb from the hive. The honey is then extracted and filtered to remove any beeswax or debris.

Honey can be stored for a very long time because of its natural properties. It has a long shelf life due to an enzyme in bees that creates substances helping to prevent bacterial growth. This makes honey safe to eat even after many years.

Adulteration

Honey is sometimes mixed with other sugars or syrups to change its taste, make it less thick, or lower costs. People have been doing this since ancient times, using syrups from plants like maple, birch, or sorghum. Today, corn syrup is a common additive, making it hard to tell if honey is pure.

Rules like those from the Codex Alimentarius of the United Nations say that honey sold as “pure” should not have these additives. Different countries have different rules about honey labelling. Special science methods help detect if honey has been mixed with other sugars.

Modern uses

Main article: Mellivory

Honey has been a popular food for thousands of years. People use honey in cooking, baking, desserts, and as a sweet spread on bread. It also makes a great addition to drinks like tea and some commercial beverages.

One of the oldest drinks in the world is mead, made by fermenting honey with yeast. There are many types of mead, such as metheglin (with spices), melomel (with fruit juices), and hippocras (with cinnamon). These special drinks show just how useful honey can be.

Physical and chemical properties

The physical properties of honey change based on its water content, the type of flowers bees used, temperature, and the sugars it contains. Fresh honey is a supersaturated liquid, meaning it has more sugar than water can normally dissolve. At room temperature, honey is a supercooled liquid where glucose turns into solid granules, creating a mix of solid glucose crystals in a liquid of fructose and other ingredients.

Honey’s density usually lies between 1.38 and 1.45 kg/L at 20 °C. The point at which honey melts is between 40 and 50 °C, depending on its makeup. Below this temperature, honey can either stay stable until a seed crystal forms or crystallize on its own, based on the ratio of fructose to glucose. Different types of honey crystallize at different rates — some quickly and some very slowly. Crystallization is also influenced by water content, dextrin levels, and temperature. Honey can become thick and sluggish when cooled but doesn’t freeze solid until very low temperatures. It can even turn into a glassy solid below -42 °C.

Main article: Phase transitions

The way honey flows, or its viscosity, depends on temperature and water content. More water makes honey flow more easily. Above its melting point, water has less effect. Honey with 14% water has a viscosity of about 400 poise at 25 °C, while honey with 20% water has a viscosity of around 20 poise. As honey cools, its viscosity increases slowly at first, then more quickly. Honey also has low surface tension, making it sticky. Most honey behaves like a typical liquid, but some types, like heather or mānuka honey, can become gel-like when still but liquefy when stirred.

Honey can conduct electricity because it contains electrolytes like acids and minerals. How much it conducts helps determine its quality. The way honey bends light can also show its type and quality. Honey can absorb moisture from the air, which is why it must be stored in sealed containers to prevent it from spoiling. If honey absorbs too much water, it can ferment. To prevent this, honey meant for long-term storage is often pasteurized by heating it to kill yeast.

When heated, honey can caramelize, turning darker and eventually burning. It contains fructose, which caramelizes at lower temperatures than glucose. Honey also has acids that speed up caramelization. These acids, especially amino acids, help give honey its color and flavor. Honey does not conduct heat well, so melting crystallized honey can cause uneven heating and localized caramelization if not done carefully.

Main article: Thermal characteristics

Honey has a pH between 3.4 and 6.1, making it acidic. It contains many types of acids that affect its flavor. The most common acid is gluconic acid, created when bees break down glucose. Other acids present in smaller amounts give honey its distinctive taste.

Different flowers give honey over 100 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that determine its flavors and aromas. These VOCs come from the flowers, the bees, or chemical reactions in the honey. They can change over time and with temperature. VOCs give honey descriptions like “sweet”, “flowery”, “citrus”, or “almond”, and help identify where the honey came from and which bees made it.

Main articles: Volatile organic compounds , Flavors , Aromas

Classification

Honey is grouped based on where it comes from and how it is made and sold. One way to group honey is by the flowers or plants whose nectar the bees used to make it. This is called the plant source. For example, monofloral honey comes mostly from one type of flower, like clover or orange blossom, giving it a special flavor and color. Polyfloral honey, also called wildflower honey, comes from many kinds of flowers and can taste different each year.

Honey can also be grouped by how it is packed and treated. Most honey is sold in its liquid form, but it can be found in other forms too. Crystallized honey turns into a grainy texture when some of the sugar in it changes form. Pasteurized honey is gently heated to remove yeast and keep the honey from spoiling. Raw honey is not heated at all and keeps more of the pollen and natural bits from the bees’ hive. Other types include filtered honey, which is very clear, and creamed honey, which is smooth and spreadable. There is also comb honey, sold still in the bees’ wax comb, and dried honey, which is made into solid pieces.

Nutrition

Honey is mostly made of water and carbohydrates, with very little dietary fiber, protein, or fat. In 100 grams of honey, there are about 300 calories.

Honey is mainly made of fructose and glucose, with small amounts of other sugars like galactose, maltose, and sucrose. The flavor, color, and aroma of honey depend on the flowers the bees visited to make it.

Medical use and research

See also: Apitherapy

Honey has been used for many years to help heal burns and other skin injuries. Some studies show that it can help burns heal faster than other treatments. It is also used as a natural antibiotic because it can fight many types of bacteria, especially since some bacteria are now resistant to regular antibiotics.

Honey is also sometimes used to help with coughs, especially in children, though it does not work better than some other common cough medicines. However, it should never be given to babies under one year old because of the risk of a serious illness called botulism. There are also some special types of honey from certain plants that can be poisonous if eaten.

History

Honey collection is an ancient activity that began long before people started keeping bees. A rock painting in Valencia, Spain, that is at least 8,000 years old shows people gathering honey from wild bees' nests. They used baskets and ropes to reach the nests. In Georgia, archaeologists found honey in clay vessels from a tomb that is between 4,700 and 5,500 years old.

The first written records of beekeeping come from ancient Egypt, where honey was used to sweeten foods and make ointments. Bees were kept at temples to provide honey for various purposes. In ancient Greece, laws were made about where bee hives could be placed, and beekeepers would move their hives to find the best flowers for honey. Honey was also valued in ancient India for its spiritual and healing properties.

Religious significance

In ancient Greek religion, honey was considered the food of Zeus and the twelve Gods of Olympus in the form of nectar and ambrosia.

In the Hebrew Bible, the Promised Land is often called "the land of milk and honey" to show its richness. For many years, scholars thought the honey mentioned in the Bible came from figs or dates, since beekeeping was not known in the area at the time. However, a discovery in Tel Rehov, Israel, from the 10th century BC showed that bees were kept there, suggesting that biblical honey might have indeed been made by bees.

In Jewish tradition, honey is eaten at the beginning of the new year, Rosh Hashanah, to bring sweetness. It is also considered kosher.

Early Christians used honey in christening ceremonies as a symbol of purity. In Islam, the Quran has a chapter called an-Nahl (the Bees), praising honey for its health benefits. In Hinduism, honey is one of the five sacred elixirs called Panchamrita and is used in temple rituals. In Buddhism, the festival of Madhu Purnima remembers when Buddha was given honey by a monkey.

Popular culture

Honey is often linked to famous characters like Winnie-the-Pooh and Bamse's thunder honey, making it a sweet and beloved topic in stories and tales.