What Is Natural Honey?

Have you ever considered, what is actually natural honey?

Mature honeybees collect nectar from plant blossoms.

Nectar is 80 to 95 percent water and 5 to 20 percent sucrose (table sugar). As the bee transports the nectar back to the hive, a protein enzyme in her honey stomach, called invertase, breaks the sucrose down into the two simple sugars, fructose, and glucose.

Young bees remove water from the sugar solution using two methods.

They pass the nectar from bee to bee and ‘drink’ the water out of the nectar by absorbing it through their stomach wall.

They also create heat and airflow in the Hive by vibrating their wings and flight muscles, thus evaporating water out of the nectar which has been stored in open cells.

When most of the sucrose has been converted to fructose and glucose and enough water has been dehydrated out of the mixture to bring it approximately 17.8% water content, we have a delicious sticky mixture, called honey!

After the natural honey is made, bees cap it with beeswax to maintain the low moisture content.

Read more: What is unpasteurized honey?