Honey straight from a hive is full of unique flavor notes based on its location and season. With a little background information, all of these delicate variations can be appreciated with the same respect and admiration as the tasting of wine.

 

 

A lot of people say honey is ‘wow’ as they know it is delicious and nutritious. So, they include it in their diet. The entire process of making honey is the reason why it is so tasty? Every bee has a job and each of them is responsible for the colony to thrive and survive.

 

 

One of the ways in which honey bees work to thrive is by producing and storing honey.

 

 

• Some interesting facts:

 

 

• Not all bees make honey and there are only about 7 species of honey bees.

 

• Bees collect nectar and pollen to store it to be used during winter.

 

• Worker bees make just about 1/12^th  of a teaspoon of honey during their lifetime and their lifespan is just 6 weeks.

 

• A large honey bee colony eats around 100 to 200 pounds of honey throughout the year.

 

• On average, a honey bee visits 100 flowers while they are out on a foraging trip.

 

• Honey bees travel around 4 to 5 miles as they set out to collect pollen and nectar.

 

• For the bees to get one pound of honey, bees have to travel approximately 55,000 miles.

 

 

 

• Reasons behind bees making honey:

 

 

During the spring and summer, worker bees concentrate on collecting nectar and pollen. They store this honey for winter. But, bees don’t survive outside the hive in the cold season. Sources of food are scarce during winter.

 

 

So honey bees end up making as much honey they can during the warm season. Honey is utilized to feed the young bees. Young honey bees consume the nectar and pollen so they are healthy enough to work once the springtime arrives.

 

 

• Honey making process:

 

 

 

 

 

Honey production includes many processes so let’s look at each step.

 

 

• Collection of nectar by worker bees:

 

 

 

 

When worker bee finds a good source of nectar, she begins her work. She uses her proboscis, sucks up nectar from the flowers as she visits more than 100 flowers during a single trip.

 

The nectar with the honey bee saliva is then stored in the special sac called a honey stomach. Once the stomach is full, the worker bee will return to the beehive to unload.

 

 

Read More:

 

What are nectar and pollen? and the Difference between them!

 

 

 

• Worker bee transfers the nectar to house bees:

 

 

 

 

House bees await the bees to come back to the beehive. The worker bee then transfers or passes the nectar to the waiting bees so that they begin the honey-making process.

 

When the nectar is chewed and passed from bee to bee, enzymes change its chemical properties.

 

Now, the nectar and enzyme mixture has a lot of water that can be stored for winters. The bees have to work on drying it.

 

 

 

• Dehydrating the honey:

 

 

 

 

A bit of water is removed from the honey when it is passed from bee to bee. Two methods are used for drying out the honey by the bees. The bees will spread the honey over the honeycomb. So, this increases the surface area and leads to more water evaporation.

 

Also, bees will fan their wings near the honey to increase airflow and evaporate more liquid. Ultimately honey will have a water content of about 17 to 20% from as high as 70%.

 

This is sheer hard work that bees do for their food.

 

 

• Honeycomb is covered with beeswax:

 

 

 

 

This is the final step in the honey-making process. Honey is deposited in the honeycomb where it stays for the bees to eat. Keeping the honey fresh is also necessary. So, each cell of the honeycomb where the honey is stored is capped with beeswax.

Most of us are unaware of this detailed process involved in making honey.

 

 

 

• Process of pollination:

 

 

 

• To get a consistent taste, color, and viscosity, honey is processed to form a mediocre syrup to which everyone has got used to. This humdrum version of honey doesn’t taste that delicious.

 

• Honey has many characteristics like color, taste, smell, viscosity, texture, and how fast it crystallizes. It all depends on the plants the bees have collected nectar from.

 

• Flowers produce a fluid called nectar that is sweet and this is how it attracts insects for the purpose of pollination. When insects search for this nectar in flowers, the pollen on flowers get stuck on their bodies and gets transferred to the stigma of the flowers. When the pollen and the stigma meet the process of pollination starts thus, the plants make seeds for the next generation.

 

 

• The unique taste of honey:

 

 

Most honey is a blend of various hives and a variety of flowers that are in the radius of honeybee’s hive at a certain time.

 

There are kinds of honey called univarietal such as blueberry honey. Univarietal kind of honey is made by placing a hive in a spot where within 3 to 4 km of radius there is an abundance of a particular type of plant blooming.

 

On average honeybees travel to 3 to 4 km in any direction for foraging. Thus, the honey is harvested immediately after a particular flower is done with blooming. Univarietal honey may have a different taste depending on the area or region and the season.

 

So the taste of honey depends on the place where the beehive is located.

 

At Navmi we ensure that honey is collected in a natural way and it is not processed. So, the natural taste of honey is maintained.

 

Visit Navmi website www.navmi.co.in to buy raw honey as the focus of Navmi, since its inception has always been serving customers with natural and organic foods of the best quality.

 

All our products like coconut oil, flaxseed oil, ghee, A2 milk, different types of natural honey, jaggery, turmeric, etc are chemical-free. Unprocessed foods contain higher amounts of antioxidants, they reduce the risk of heart disease, cancers, and other health issues.

 

Visit our site (Nirlesh Foods Private Limited or Navmi) www.navmi.co.in to know more about nutritionally pure and unprocessed food. Make a conscious and healthy choice of foods.

 

 

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