Honey is made by bees from nectars which they have collected from the flowers. Nectars are sugary liquids produced directly by plants through their flowers. Honey and nectar are a good substitute for sugars for humans as they may not increase blood sugar. Nectar is a sugar solution with a negligible percentage of salts, vitamins, yeasts, and a mixture of pollen. A little protein, traces of several acids, some indefinable substances contributing to colour, aroma, flavour and some other substances, then makes honey. Other compounds found in honey in trace amounts are calcium, chlorine, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, silica, sodium, and sulfur. The sugar solution is mainly composed of levulose, dextrose, and sucrose; the original nectar being composed of 70-80% water and 20% sugars. The bees have to evaporate the water content down to about 20%, so, half to three-quarters of what they bring back to the hive as nectar is evaporated in the process of turning the nectar into honey. If the final moisture content of the ripened honey is too high, the yeasts present can cause the honey to ferment.
The bee collecting the nectar starts the process of turning nectar into honey by adding enzymes (invertase) that start the conversion of the sugars into fructose and glucose, two simple sugars that honey bees digest easily. The enzyme glucose oxidase is also found in honey and it converts glucose to gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide.
An average hive consumes 90kgs a year, and in the production of honey, some 400kgs of nectar is processed down to 90kgs of honey. Bees consume
2kgs of honey to produce 10kgs of honey out of the nectar gathered.
On return to the hive, the bees then pass the nectar by mouth to multiple bees for about 20 minutes. During this process, new enzymes are being added, further converting the nectar into honey. The next step is depositing the nectar into the honeycomb. Some honey is consumed to enable the bees to build and repair the honeycomb. The bees use their wings to evaporate the liquid from the nectar. At approximately 17% water, we finally have honey, an all-natural and stable ingredient that the bees create and use for food. When it’s matured, the bees seal the cell with a wax lid to keep it clean.
It takes the entire lifetime of about eight bees to produce
one teaspoon of honey. One fascinating aspect of nectar collection is that an individual field bee only collects nectar from the same colour and species of flower. She is not distracted by other plants and their flowers, even though those other flowers may be rich in nectar. And not all field bees from the same hive will be collecting from the same species of plant if more than one plant is producing nectar. Other field bees will be collecting from other species.
Ref Bees I. Khalifman
(Won the Stalin Prize for Bee Research, 1951)
