What Is Honey? (A Guide For Beginning Beekeepers)
Although several insects make honey, it is mainly associated with the western honey bee (Apis mellifera) – the most common species of honey bee used for honey production worldwide.
Honey is a sweet, viscous, naturally produced food. Honey bees collect plant nectar, alter its chemical makeup using enzymes, and store it in wax comb cells. By dehydrating the mixture, bees create honey, a supersaturated product with significantly more sugar than water. Once converted, bees cap honey with wax for storage.
Thus, honey is a “naturally available product and is the only concentrated sweetener that can be found in nature.” [1]
Bees store honey as their primary food source. Beekeepers harvest the bees’ surplus honey for human consumption as food or as an additive to other products.
Harvesting honey is one of the primary reasons for being a beekeeper. Everyone knows honey is a thick, liquid sweetener. Besides that, though, what is honey?
This article is a beginning beekeeper’s guide to this fantastic hive product including information on why and how bees make honey.
See our article about beekeeping as a hobby for reasons to enjoy beekeeping other than honey harvesting.
Affiliate Disclosure: BeekeepingForNewbies.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. This site also participates in other affiliate programs and is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies.
Check out our gift ideas for a beekeeper you know…or for yourself. In addition to standard beekeeping supplies, we’ve highlighted some unique beekeeping-related items.
Why Do Bees Make Honey?
Honey bee diets consist of honey, beebread, and royal jelly, which they make from harvested pollen, nectar, and water.
Nurse bees feed bee bread and royal jelly to developing bee larvae. Honey is the primary food source for adult bees.
By making honey, bees have a high-energy food source that lasts for extended periods without spoiling. In addition, capped honey is available to the bees when other food sources are not, especially during winter and summer nectar dearth.
Learn more! See our article What Do Honey Bees Eat? for more information about the honey bee’s diet.
How Do Bees Make Honey?
The primary building block of honey is the nectar produced by flowering plants.
Nectar is a watery, sweet liquid containing sugars and other components, including amino acids, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, pigments, and aroma sources. [2] Nectar is about 80% water.
Nectar attracts bees (and other pollinators) to flowers. While gathering nectar and pollen, a honey bee inadvertently pollinates plants. This transfer of pollen aids the plant’s reproduction.
Foraging bees gather nectar with a tongue-like proboscis and store it in a “honey stomach,” which mixes the nectar with bacteria and enzymes. The chemical makeup of the nectar changes as a complex sugar (sucrose) breaks down into simple sugars (glucose and fructose).
Upon arriving at the hive, foragers transfer the nectar mixture to house bees, who continue the conversion process. House bees regurgitate some of the nectar to evaporate water content.
Bees then regurgitate the nectar mix into wax comb cells where they fan it to further evaporate more water. Eventually, the water content is reduced to about 15 – 18%, thereby increasing the glucose and sucrose content to about 70%. Thus, the original runny nectar liquid becomes honey, a supersaturated sugar solution.
The level of water content of combined with the high sugar content and some other components make honey antibacterial and capable of being stored for long periods without spoiling.
Once the bees determine that nectar becomes honey, they enclose it with wax cappings. These caps prevent honey from absorbing additional moisture or running out the cells in high heat.
Although honey contains trace amounts of pollen, pollen is not part of the honey-making process.
Also, note that while feeding sugar syrup to honey bees can supplement a colony’s food resources, the syrup cannot make honey because sugar syrup lacks components found in nectar that are essential to the creation of honey.
Is Honey Bee Vomit Or Bee Poop?
No, honey is neither bee vomit nor bee poop.
While nectar is “regurgitated” as part of the honey-making process, a bee stores it in a particular “honey stomach.” The honey stomach is separate and distinct from the bee’s stomach in the digestive tract.
Regurgitated nectar was never in the bee’s digestive tract and thus is neither vomit nor poop.
Why Is Honey Called Supersaturated?
Honey consists primarily of sugar and water. The dissolved sugar content relative to water is higher than normal at its stored temperature. This state is called “supersaturated.”
As a supersaturated solution, some sugar will precipitate out of the solution (separate from water), causing the honey to crystallize.
Raw Honey vs. Processed Honey
Raw honey is honey in the condition the bees made it with minimal processing. Therefore, without the application of significant heat, the chemical properties of raw honey are unaltered.
Raw honey may contain trace amounts of pollen, propolis, and other materials.
Assume that any honey not labeled as raw has most likely been pasteurized and heavily filtered.
Mass producers process honey primarily for marketing purposes. Processing honey retards crystallization (described below), impedes fermentation, and controls color, giving honey an appealing look on the shelf for the average consumer.
Learn more! See our article What Is Raw Honey? (Besides Delicious) for detailed information about the differences between raw and processed honey.
What Are The Different Forms Of Honey?
There are five primary forms of honey under a variety of names:
- Liquid honey (also referred to as extracted honey)
- Crystallized honey (which starts as raw, liquid honey)
- Comb honey (sometimes called cut comb honey or honeycomb)
- Creamed honey (also called whipped or spun honey, among other things)
- Chunk honey
Liquid Honey
Honey stored by bees under wax cappings is in liquid form. Most honey is harvested and extracted from the comb as a liquid.
Beekeepers harvest frames of capped honey from the hive. After removing the wax caps, honey can be extracted from the comb by several methods. (Hence the reference to extracted honey.)
For small harvests, comb and honey can be scraped off the foundation to be crushed and strained. This straining process separates the honey from the wax and removes any large particles that may exist.
For larger harvests, centrifugal extractors remove honey from frames efficiently. These extractors spin at high speeds, forcing honey out of the comb. This honey is also strained to remove large items.
As mentioned above, large producers may also heat and filter honey further as part of the process.
Liquid honey is thick but pourable and packaged in glass or plastic bottles.
Crystallized Honey
As a supersaturated solution, liquid honey may “crystallize” as sugar separates from the water. Crystallizing honey becomes cloudy, loses viscosity, and eventually becomes a gritty solid.
Raw honey has traces of pollen and other material that sugar can attach to and separate from the water.
Despite its appearance, crystallization does not mean that honey has spoiled. Crystallized honey retains the flavor and other attributes of liquid honey but in a different form. Crystallization indicates that you have real honey, not an adulterated sweetener.
To reverse crystallization, simply bathe the container in hot water. You can also heat crystallized honey in a microwave, but that runs the risk of overheating the honey.
Learn more! See our article Why Does Honey Crystallize? for more information about why honey turns into a semisolid state.
Comb Honey
Comb honey is liquid honey encased in its wax comb. Extracted from the hive precisely as the bees made it makes it the rawest form of honey available. Despite its appearance, comb honey is edible in its entirety, including the wax.
Learn more! See our article about how to eat honeycomb for more information about comb honey, including some of its benefits and risks. Also, learn why comb honey is more expensive than its liquid counterpart.
Creamed Honey
Creamed honey is a form of crystallized honey.
Natural crystallization produces large sugar granules. Creamed honey processing controls the crystallization process, thereby creating smaller crystals.
With many small sugar granules, creamed honey is smoother and less gritty than solid, naturally crystallized honey.
Creamed honey is a sweetener, just like liquid honey. However, the consistency of creamed honey means you can spread it on bread, fruit, or any other food you choose.
Note: Creamed honey goes by various adjectives in place of creamed, such as whipped, spun, granulated, churned, or fondant. I have even seen it referred to as honey butter. I have not determined why all these name variations appear, but I suspect they reflect some regional differences.
Creamed honey can be made by a couple of different processes.
The first process, called the Dyce Method, named for Elton James Dyce who patented the process in 1931, requires a process of pasteurization. The application of heat needed for pasteurization will affect the chemical composition of the honey meaning it is no longer “raw.”
However, creamed honey is also made by a different process that does not require significant heat, thus keeping the properties of raw honey.
Learn more! See our article on creamed honey for more details, including how to make creamed honey from your hive’s raw honey harvest.
Chunk Honey
Chunk honey is made by placing a piece of comb honey in a jar of liquid honey. Chunk honey seems to be primarily an attractive marketing presentation to consumers.
If you have not tried some of these forms of honey, check out the following recommendations:
Savannah Bee Pure Raw Acacia Honeycomb
Nate’s 100% Pure,
Raw & Unfiltered Honey
Sue Bee Spun USA Clover Honey 12 Oz (Pack of 2)
Types Of Honey (Honey Varietals)
According to the National Honey Board, “more than 300 unique types of honey available in the United States” are naturally produced (which excludes honey with infused flavors). These different types of honey are often called “varietals.”
Honey varietals differ in terms of flavor, color, aroma, and texture.
Differences in attributes among kinds of honey stem primarily from the floral sources of the nectar.
Location, climate, and processing methods also impact variations among types of honey and even for the same kind of honey from different seasons.
Polyfloral vs. Monofloral Honey
Polyfloral is the identifying term used for honey produced from the nectar of many different plants. Polyfloral honey is also called wildflower honey. (Our honey, and that of many backyard beekeepers, is polyfloral.)
Flavor and other attributes of polyfloral honey can vary widely depending on the variety of plants available within the foraging range of the hive during a particular season.
Monofloral honey has distinctive attributes that result from nectar being sourced overwhelmingly from a particular plant species.
Since bees have wide foraging ranges, the production of monofloral honey requires a location dominated by a particular plant as a nectar source. In addition, beekeepers need to time their honey harvesting to coincide with the nectar flow from that plant.
Some examples of monofloral honey are Orange Blossom Honey, Clover Honey, and Manuka Honey.
Try some monofloral honeys and see if you can taste the differences:
Bee Harmony Honey (Clover, Wildflower and Orange Blossom)
Manukora Raw Manuka Honey, MGO 50+, New Zealand
BEE HARMONY Eucalyptus Raw Organic Honey
The National Honey Board published a Honey Varietal Guide describing 20 of the most popular monofloral honey plus wildflower honey. The guide outlines each honey’s nectar source, attributes, and geography, along with recommended uses.
Organic Honey
It is challenging, if not impossible, to determine if any honey is “organic.”
Scientific American says, “Organic Honey Is A Sweet Illusion.” In addition to the “staggering amount of territory” covered by foraging bees, chemicals used to control Varroa mites accumulate in beeswax and linger long. A cited survey found 98% of samples of commercially available beeswax contaminated with miticides. (source: Mullin CA, Frazier M, Frazier JL, Ashcraft S, Simonds R, et al. (2010) High Levels of Miticides and Agrochemicals in North American Apiaries: Implications for Honey Bee Health. PLoS ONE 5(3): e9754. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009754)
The Organic Trade Association’s Organic Standards “require that products bearing the USDA organic label be grown and processed without the use of toxic and synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, genetic engineering, antibiotics, synthetic growth hormones, artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, sewage sludge and irradiation.”
It’s nearly impossible to verify that some of these conditions are met. For example, honey bees may fly 2 miles (1.6 Km) or more foraging for nectar and pollen.
In January 2021, the USDA informed me via email, “The USDA organic regulations do not currently specify apiculture standards. Apiculture is included as “inactive” on the Office of Management and Budget Regulatory Agenda. There is no near-term plan to advance apiculture rulemaking.” [emphasis added]
However, there is a recommendation by the National Organic Standards Board for apiculture standards. The proposals in this recommendation (dated October 28, 2010) are based on treating bees as livestock.
Since no standards have been adopted for organic honey, the USDA does not inspect for compliance. Despite this fact, you can buy honey sporting the USDA Organic label.
Honey can be labeled USDA Organic if the country of origin has an apiculture standard recognized by the U.S. government.
Examine the label of any USDA Organic honey, and you will likely find the country of origin to be Brazil or Mexico,
Infused Honey
Infused honey is honey flavored by steeping herbs, spices, or other food items in the honey. It is no longer pure honey but that does not mean you can’t enjoy it.
“Infusion is the process of extracting chemical compounds or flavors from plant material in a solvent such as water, oil or alcohol, by allowing the material to remain suspended in the solvent over time (a process often called steeping).”
Wikipedia
Introducing other foods into honey for flavoring can increase the moisture content causing mold or fermentation. For this reason, it is better to infuse dried herbs and spices than fresh items because of their lower moisture content. However, dried foods may introduce spores and other particles into honey.
Adding other items to honey will decrease its shelf life.
Honey infused with fresh items should be treated like any other perishable food item and be kept refrigerated. Dry-infused honey should be stable at room temperature and avoid spoiling for several months.
If you want to try some infused honey flavors, check out some of these:
Mike’s Hot Honey, Infused with Chili Peppers
Jamie’s Hive to Table Infused Raw Honey Sampler
Sue Bee Infusions Strawberry Flavored Honey
What Is Honey Used For?
Honey As A Sweetener
As mentioned above, honey is a sweet food product. It is commonly consumed directly or added to other food as a sweetener.
Honey contains about 40% fructose and 30 – 35% glucose, which are simple sugars. Fructose, also known as fruit sugar, “is the sweetest of the naturally occurring caloric sweeteners.”[3]
Honey’s high fructose content, combined with its vitamins, antioxidants, and other nutrients, make it an excellent sweetening choice relative to other options.
Honey And Health
Health Benefits Of Honey
Honey has long “been known to possess antimicrobial properties as well as wound-healing activity” as a result of “the fact that it offers antibacterial activity.”[4]
Honey is often used as a cough suppressant.
Research indicates that the natural antioxidants in honey may have a “promising pharmacological role in preventing cardiovascular diseases.”[5]
According to the Mayo Clinic, “Evidence suggests honey might help relieve gastrointestinal tract conditions such as diarrhea associated with gastroenteritis. Honey might also be effective as part of oral rehydration therapy.”
Health Risks Of Honey
Honey is relatively high in sugar and calories. As a result, excess consumption of honey carries an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
Do not feed honey to children under one year old. Infants that young have not developed the beneficial bacteria to protect them from spores that cause botulism. Also, some recommend avoiding honey during pregnancy for similar reasons.
If you are allergic to bees or pollen, you may want to avoid comb honey. Despite the minimal amounts of pollen and other materials, comb honey could trigger an allergic reaction.
Although beeswax is edible, overeating beeswax can potentially cause stomach or intestinal blockage. The Mayo Clinic says, “seek immediate medical care if you have severe abdominal pain or other symptoms of intestinal obstruction,” such as abdominal pain, constipation or swelling of the abdomen and others (see Intestinal Obstruction on the Mayo Clinic website).
Use Of Honey In Domestic Crafts
Honey can be used in a variety of domestic crafts.
Mead, also known as honey wine, might be the oldest alcoholic beverage in the world. According to Liquor.com, “mead fermentation predates both wine and beer.” Fermented honey is the primary ingredient in mead.
If you are interested in making mead at home, check out our friend’s site Frugal Homebrew. Two articles I recommend are about the best type of honey for mead and why mead is so expensive (making your own can lower the cost).
Honey can be used in homemade beauty supplies such as lotions and soaps. If you’re interested in these types of uses, check out the book Beehive Alchemy by Petra Ahnert (available on Amazon) for ideas and instructions.
Conclusion
Honey is a thick, natural, sweet food product of the beehive. While it is the primary food source for honey bees, beekeepers harvest surplus honey for human consumption.
Due to its unique chemical composition, honey does not spoil over extended periods, provides various health benefits, and is used as an additive for non-food products.
Beekeepers offer honey in various forms and types.
Familiarize yourself with this amazing hive product to get the most out of backyard beekeeping.
Additional Reading
The Chemistry of Honey by Sharla Riddle in Bee Culture magazine
Footnotes
[1] Albaridi NA. Antibacterial Potency of Honey. Int J Microbiol. 2019;2019:2464507. Published 2019 Jun 2. doi:10.1155/2019/2464507
[2] Sources: What’s the Secret of Nectar by Michael Ellis in Bay Nature magazine and Honey Bee Biology and Beekeeping by Dewey M. Caron with Lawrence John Connor available here on Amazon
[3] Is fructose bad for you? – Medical News Today
[4] Mandal MD, Mandal S. Honey: its medicinal property and antibacterial activity. Asian Pac J Trop Biomed. 2011;1(2):154-160. doi:10.1016/S2221-1691(11)60016-6
[5] Khalil MI, Sulaiman SA. The potential role of honey and its polyphenols in preventing heart diseases: a review. Afr J Tradit Complement Altern Med. 2010;7(4):315-321. doi:10.4314/ajtcam.v7i4.56693
