What is Honey?
The raw material for honey is nectar from flowers. Honey bees collect this nectar, bring it back to the hive, and make it into honey. The bees change the chemical structure of the nectar, and also fan warm air to reduce the moisture content of the nectar from as much as 60% to 20% or even less. The honey has such low moisture content that it actually attracts humidity like a sponge, and in the hive the honey bees put a wax capping over the full cells of honey to help preserve it.
The raw material for honey is nectar from flowers. The honey bees extract the nectar of the flower, change the chemical structure of nectar and make it into honey. The bees transport the honey back to the hive, where they deposit it into comb like cells. Once each cell has been filled up with honey, the bees produce a wax capping to close the cell and preserve the honey. The bees fan with their wings to reduce the moisture content of the honey from as much as 60% to 20% or even less. The honey has such a low moisture content, that it actually attracts humidity like a sponge.
Honey is a complex mix of sugars but it is mainly glucose (roughly 30%, by weight) and fructose (40%) in invert form. The bees supply the invertase, which is the enzyme that inverts the fructose. Honeys makeup is not consistent, it varies by source, season, region and producer. It is about 75% fermentable. sugar, the remainder is water, proteins, some minerals, etc. There are hundreds of different honeys throughout the world, most of them are named for the flower from which they originate. The flowers that produce some of the most popular honeys are clover, orange blossom, and sage. A few other honeys, some of which are available in limited quantities, are from the following blossoms: alfalfa, buckwheat, dandelion, heather, linden, raspberry, spearmint and thyme. Honey comes in three basic forms: comb honey, with the liquid still in the chewy comb, both of which are edible; chunk-style honey which is honey with pieces of honeycomb included in the jar, and regular liquid honey that has
