What is Honey?
Honey is a naturally sweet, thick liquid made by honey bees from the nectar of flowers. When bees collect nectar, which is mostly water and sugars, they bring it back to the hive and transform it by adding special enzymes from their mouths. This process breaks down the nectar’s sugars, mainly converting sucrose into simpler sugars called fructose and glucose—the two main sugars that make up about 75-80% of honey.
Besides these sugars, honey also contains tiny amounts of proteins, vitamins, minerals like potassium and calcium, organic acids, and antioxidants. These minor components give honey its unique flavours and colours, with the exact composition being dependent on the flowers the bees have visited.
Honey is naturally acidic and contains small amounts of hydrogen peroxide, which helps prevent bacteria and fungi from growing, making it a remarkably long-lasting food. In fact, honey found in ancient Egyptian tombs thousands of years old was still perfectly edible! So, honey isn’t just a sweet treat; it’s a complex, natural product created by bees that nourishes both them and us.
Why Do Bees Make Honey?
Well, quite simply because honey bees are quite remarkable! Unlike their wasp or bumblebee cousins, they stick together through the winter as a colony. There’s no hibernation for these busy creatures; they stay active, huddling together to keep warm. As you can imagine, that requires a lot of fuel, which they diligently store up during the summer months. While a hive only really needs about 20-30 pounds of honey to see them through a typical British winter, bees are incredibly industrious and will happily collect much more if they have the space – which, of course, is exactly what a beekeeper hopes for!
It’s fascinating to think that bees have been perfecting their honey-making craft in precisely the same way for over 150 million years. Simply incredible!
How Much Honey Can One Beehive Produce?
In a really good season, one hive can produce a generous 60 pounds (27 kg) or even more, though a more common surplus for your average hive here in the UK might be around 25 pounds (11 kg).
Just imagine, to make just one pound of honey, bees collectively fly about 55,000 miles! That’s like buzzing around the world two and a bit times.
And for a bit of historical trivia, did you know the Romans actually used honey to pay their taxes, rather than gold? It puts its value into perspective!
How Does The Beekeeper Get The Honey From The Bees?
This is where the beekeeper’s ingenuity comes in. The queen bee is typically kept in the lower part of the hive (brood box) by a “queen excluder” – which is a clever wire or plastic grid that she’s simply too big to fit through. This means that in the upper sections of the hive (‘supers’), the bees will only store honey, as the queen can’t get up there to lay eggs. As the seasons progress, the beekeeper will add more supers until it’s time for the harvest.
When they’re ready, they will gently encourage all the bees to move down into the lowest part of the hive, allowing the beekeeper to remove the honey-filled ‘super’ boxes. To extract the honey from the comb, the beekeeper will remove the thin layer of wax the bees have placed over the honey and place the frames in a spinner, which then uses centrifugal force to spin out the honey – it looks a bit like an old-fashioned, upright spin dryer, and it is rather fantastic seeing it all fling out of the comb and drip down to the bottom! The beekeeper will then pour this through a coarse sieve to remove any large bits of wax etc., and then into a jar for us to be able to take home and enjoy.
You can be assured that the honey from our members’ hives is pure, natural and unpasteurised!
Do The Bees Miss The Honey That Is Taken?
Happily, no, not at all! A healthy, strong colony typically produces two to three times more honey than they actually need to survive. As ethical beekeepers only remove the excess, they ensure they have enough, but if for any reason, the beekeeper feels they may need a little extra because maybe the weather has not been in the bees favour, they can provide them some extra food to ensure they are well-fed for the entire winter. So, no hungry bees involved!
Why Are Some Types Of Honey Clear And Runny And Other Types Opaque And Hard?
This is the fascinating variety in honey – from runny and golden to thick and opaque – it all comes down to what the bees have been foraging on.
For instance, those vibrant yellow oil seed rape fields we see all over Southern England in spring produce a huge amount of honey, unfortunately it sets incredibly hard though, in fact so much so that the bees can’t even use it in winter. The beekeeper can however use their skills to ‘cream’ (mix without air) this into soft-set honey, that is creamy in colour and consistency -perfect for spreading on toast.
Other flowers that are around in the spring can also result in a honey that sets relatively quickly and can look a bit cloudier in appearance due to this. However, if it does set or granulate, this is not a problem and indeed all pure, natural honey will eventually set. To bring it back to runny, you can just place the jar in a container of hot water until it has warmed through and become runny again.
Much of our UK honey will come from our lovely summer garden flowers, and this tends to be beautifully clear and liquid. If a beekeeper wants to produce a single-flower honey, like lavender, borage or heather honey, they need to place their hives well out of range of other flowers, as the regulations state it must come “wholly or mainly from the indicated source and possess the organoleptic, physico-chemical and microscopic characteristics of the source” – which, as you can imagine, can be a bit of a challenge for a hobby beekeeper who’s hives are not surrounded by miles of a single ‘crop’, and in all honesty is happy with getting a delicious blend of the season’s bounty!
Come autumn, some beekeepers get a licence to move their hives over to the New Forest for the bees to collect nectar from the miles of wild heather growing there. This produces a unique, jelly-like consistency honey with a very distinct flavour and needs to be pressed or squeezed out of the comb, as it is too thick to spin out!
So, it’s amazing and tasty, but how do the Bees make honey from the flowers they visit?
It’s quite a process! Bees collect nectar, which is that sweet, sticky liquid from most flowers. They then mix it with special enzymes from glands in their mouths. This nectar and enzyme concoction is stored in the iconic hexagonal wax honeycombs. They diligently fan it to reduce the water content down to about 17%. Once it’s at that perfect consistency, they cap the cell with a thin layer of wax, sealing it until they need it. That little wax cap is the signal to the beekeeper that the honey is ready to be harvested. And astonishingly, properly capped honey can practically last forever! Just think, perfectly edible honeycomb was discovered in the tombs of the Pharaohs, over three thousand years old. Talk about a good ‘Best Before’ date!
Does Honey Contain Additives?
This is an important point, especially when you’re looking for quality.
Unfortunately, there’s quite a lot of mass-produced, adulterated honey floating around these days. Indeed honey is one of the most adulterated foods we have and a study of honey in the supermarkets, sadly found much of what was being sold was not pure honey.
The most common issues with honey adulteration include:
- Dilution with cheaper sugar syrups
- Harvesting honey when it’s still immature (meaning it hasn’t been properly dried by the bees)
- Using chemical processes like ion-exchange resins to lighten its colour
- Using high heat, pasteurisation or ultra-filtration to stop it setting/crystalising, removing all the goodness from the pollen and enzymes that should be in there
- Mis-labelling where the honey actually came from
Where can I get honey that is local, pure, natural and unadulterated?
The good news is, if you buy your honey directly from one of our members you know that you are getting pure, natural goodness. Their honey will be clearly labelled saying it is a produce of England/UK and will have details of the beekeeper on it. This is also a good tip for if you are travelling in the UK and looking for local honey, be that from a village fair, a farmers’ market, farm shop, or straight from a beekeeper’s gate – you can quickly check the label to ensure it states it is “Produce of UK” (or of England, Wales etc.) and has the name of the beekeeper. This will mean not only has nothing been added, and it’s simply been filtered to remove any bits of comb or wax after it’s been spun out, but you’re also supporting local and getting the real deal!
Many of our members sell their honey on stalls we have at shows in the local area, such as the Portchester Gala, Rowlands Castle Village Fair and Denmead Horticultural Show. They may also sell their honey in local shops from butchers and corner stores, to garden centres and post offices. Indeed some also use Facebook/Instagram, FB Marketplace and Etsy. Some also offer honey in bulk sizes, for example to those who make mead, sauces, fudges and to restaurants etc. Remember, we can always share messages with our members if you are looking to purchase a large bucket or two of honey, or if you would like to say stock local honey in your shop or hampers.
