According to the National Honey Board, honey is officially defined as the product made by honey bees through a process of gathering and refining plant nectar. Stored in honeycombs within the hive, honey nourishes the bees and provides most of their carbohydrates for energy. Although bees do bring pollen home to the hive as well, these two food products are usually stored separately.
Honey Production
Worker bees gather nectar from flowers such as clover, dandelions and orange blossoms to make honey. According to Michigan State University's Ask Science Theater, worker bees have two stomachs --- one for food and one for nectar storage. The bees suck nectar out of the flowers and carry it back to the hive. Other bees then suck the nectar out of the worker bee's stomach and partially digest it. The bees' digestive enzymes transform nectar's complex sugars into simple sugars, protecting it from bacteria. The bees spread the partially digested nectar into the honeycomb, where it thickens to a syrup. The honey remains in the honeycomb until the bees eat it.
Honey Components
The National Honey Board offers a list of honey's components, although they note that the amounts of each component vary because honey is a natural product. Honey contains a variety of sugars, moisture and less than one percent of trace minerals. The types of sugars include fructose, glucose, sucrose and reducing sugars. Pollen is not an ingredient in honey, not even in trace amounts.
Types of Honey
The source of the nectar the bees use to make their honey can affect the taste, texture and color of the honey. According to the Mid-Atlantic Apicultural Research & Extension Consortium, or MAAREC, more than half of the honey produced in the U.S. comes from clover and alfalfa flowers; other sources include buckwheat, blackberry and sage. Most commercially available honeys indicate the type of nectar used: clover honey, for example. MAAREC notes that beekeepers may label honey as "wildflower honey" if the bees collected different types of nectar.
Honey and Nutrition
According to the National Honey Board, honey is a good source of dietary carbohydrates. In one tablespoon, you'll get 64 calories and 17 grams of carbs, 16 of which come from sugar. Honey, they note, is also a source of antioxidants such as flavonoids and phenolic acids. Antioxidants neutralize dangerous free radicals that wreak havoc on your cells, causing problems ranging from cancerous cellular mutations to visible effects of aging such as fine lines and wrinkles.
Bee Pollen and Honey
According to the University of Florida Extension, bees do collect both pollen and nectar and bring them back to the hive. There, however, they are made into separate food articles: nectar becomes honey, supplying bees with carbohydrates and minerals, while pollen becomes "bee bread," providing protein, lipids and other nutrients. Some bees forage for pollen, others collect the nectar. The university extension estimates that only 15 to 30 percent of a hive's worker bees collect pollen.
Member Comments