Honey is a by-product of flower nectar (the sugar-rich liquid produced by flower nectary glands), plant secretions or plant suckling insects and the digestive tract of a bee. ‘Forager’ bees collect nectar from numerous plants by drinking it. As they feed they collect pollen (which the male part of the plant produces) on their tiny bodies. They then transfer the pollen to the next plant they gorge on transferring it to the stigma (the female plant part) in the process known as pollination. It is estimated bees pollinate about 1/6 of flowering plant species and around 400 different types of agricultural crops..
Beekeepers must understand how much honey to remove from the hive while still leaving enough to sustain the bee population, and minimise disruption. It takes a lot of energy for bees to make honey and it’s estimated that to produce a standard jar of honey, a bee must make over a million flower visits..
Honey is around 80% carbohydrates in the form of fructose and glucose. However it’s also has a good portion of water (18%) and proteins (with 18 amino acids), vitamins (e.g. B vitamins), minerals (e.g. calcium) and pollen (2%).5 The proportions of these compounds change with the type of honey. For example, certain bioactive (has a biological effect) compounds in Manuka honey have been linked positively to nutritional and wound healing effects.
Honey has been used throughout the ages for its antioxidant and antibacterial properties due to it range of compounds such as vitamins and minerals that assist in healing processes, and bacteria combating characteristics such as high acidity and sugar concentration
There are about 320 different varieties with flavour, colour and smell, depending on the sources of plants visited by the honey bee
In the UK, the only ingredient in your honey should be honey. Law states that to be labelled “honey” on the pot…it must be honey in the pot! This however doesn’t tell you how it was extracted, how it’s been purified, if it is pasteurised and so on.
Organic honey is made when the bees feast on plants that have not been applied with synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides or fungicides. This is a tricky thing to quantify as it has been estimated that the European bee foraging distance is up to 12km.10 With the UK being a small land area with organic and non-organic farming, certification is proving difficult
