From Hive to Home, What Does it Take to Produce the Honey We Eat for Breakfast?
Like many of the foods we eat, it’s easy to take the honey in our cupboards for granted. The harvesting and processing of the wheat in our bread. The work that goes into the animal agriculture that produces our meat and dairy products. The sowing, growing, picking and packing of the fruits and vegetables waiting for us in every supermarket in the land. It’s all just produced, ready for us to add to our real life or online shopping baskets.
However, if we stopped to think about all of these farming practices when we shop, we might actually feel quite engaged and aware of them. We’ve probably taken them in as we drive past fields of cows and crops on our way to the beach or the countryside. We might even have farming in our blood.
But what about honey? What do we know about how that’s produced? We’re probably aware that it’s something to do with bees, nectar, flowers and hives. Aside from that, honey is just there, in an easy screw top jar in the condiment cupboard, just waiting to be unleashed and deliciously drizzled over our yoghurt or lavishly and indulgently spread on our toast.
What goes into making honey? How do bees turn nectar into honey? And how much can they produce in a lifetime?
Time to take a look (and you might be a bit surprised – spoiler, bee regurgitation…).
How Honey is Made
A bee hive is a very busy place. Worker bees constantly come and go from the hive. When they go, they go foraging – and using a special tube-like tongue called a proboscis, they suck nectar, a sweet, syrup-like liquid, from the insides of flowers. Nectar is a bee’s source of energy in the form of carbohydrate. (Pollen, collected on their legs and bodies, is their source of protein, but more on that another time).
The foraged nectar is then stored in the first chamber of their stomach. Enzymes in this stomach begin to break the complex sugars in nectar (sucrose) into simple sugars (glucose and fructose). Amazingly, each bee can carry half of their body weight in nectar in their stomachs for the flight back to the hive.
Once back at the hive, they regurgitate the partially digested nectar, and it gets passed, mouth to mouth, around the worker bees of the hive. This process gradually reduces the water content and adds further enzymes.
Once the water content is down to 18%, the liquid, that’s now a mixture of glucose, fructose, beneficial enzymes, antimicrobial properties, vitamins and minerals, is now officially honey! Because the water content is so low, and it contains natural antimicrobials; moulds, viruses and bacteria can no longer grow in it, and if stored correctly, will never spoil or go off.
And the bees have correct storage down to a tee.
Bees thrive on nectar and pollen when flowers are abundant. But during the winter, they need honey to survive. So, they push the honey they’ve made into the familiar hexagonal spaces created in each hive from honeycomb to store for supplies to survive the winter.
To feed us, beekeepers remove this honey soaked honeycomb, spin it and collect it in jars – ready for us to enjoy.
But what about the bees, we hear you cry!
Respectful, scrupulous beekeepers leave more than enough for the hive to survive the winter, and the bees aren’t harmed. After all, if they were, or left to starve, they’d see their whole hive collapse, with nothing for the following year.
How Much Honey Can One Bee Produce?
One honeybee creates one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime. That’s a tiny 0.8g of honey per honeybee. For a hive to create 500g of honey, it takes 2 million trips to and from nearby flowers.
Pretty cool for the small insects that can be so commonly mistaken for wasps with a sole intention of ruining our BBQs.
Quality Honey Over Quantity
We hope this have given you pause for thought, and even a new found respect for the bees that work so hard to supply us with the honey we adore. It’s more than a cupboard staple along with the jam and peanut butter.
Choose quality over quantity with top class, unpasteurised Jarrah and Marri honeys from Necta & Hive - and keep them front and centre where they belong!
