Beverley
Beekeepers' Association
The
local Beekeeping Association for East
Yorkshire
More
about honey
Plants live by the moisture and the nutrients they collect
from the soil and from carbon dioxide absorb from the
atmosphere. Within the green parts of the plant an involved
process known as photosynthesis takes place. Chlorophyll,
present in the cells, uses light energy to convert carbon
dioxide and water into many complex building chemicals
including glucose and other more complex sugars.
Plants secrete nectar, which is a watery solution of
various sugars, from nectaries usually situated in the
flowers. The main sugars are sucrose, glucose (dextrose)
and fructose (laevulose) present in varying proportions and
concentrations depending on the species of plant, the soil,
and climatic conditions. Nectar also contains traces of
protein, salts, acids, enzymes, and aromatic substances. So
there is some justification in giving honey the "bottled
sunshine" tag.
Having gathered some nectar, it is carried back to the hive
in the bee's honey sac, a non-digestive crop and passed on
to the house bees. Two things have to be done to convert
the nectar into honey. The sucrose in the nectar has to be
split by the addition of an enzyme (invertase) produced in
the glands of the bee, into two simple sugars fructose and
glucose. This allows high concentrations of sugar solutions
to be achieved. Secondly the water content, anything up to
80% has to be reduced to below 22% to prevent fermentation.
The house bees do this by exposing small quantities of the
liquid to the warmth (av. 33°C) of a well ventilated part
of the hive. The object of these changes is to produce a
food which when sealed over in the cells of the comb will
keep until needed, and is suitable with the addition of
water for feeding to larvae when rearing starts in the
spring. Strong colonies in good foraging areas can store
two to four times as much honey as they need for winter
survival; it is this surplus that the beekeeper can take.
Beekeepers offer honey either as clear honey, set honey or
comb honey. Comb honey is the least popular but is honey in
its most natural state, just as the bees stored it.
Clear honey is produced by extracting honey from the comb
either by spinning or pressing. This is bottled after
simple screening and filtering through fine mesh cloths.
All honeys will start to crystallize after a time as some
of the sugars come out of solution. This is perfectly
normal and the rate this happens varies with the ratio of
glucose to fructose, which in turn depends upon the types
of nectar which were collected. If you wish to clear a
crystallizing honey simply warm the open jar in a microwave
or in a pan of hot water.
Set honey is produced when the crystallization is allowed
to continue. Many people prefer this on toast. As naturally
set honey is a little coarse: most beekeepers control the
crystallization to produce fine grained set honey known as
soft set or creamed. This can be spooned from the jar
without bending the cutlery!
In East Yorkshire most nectar is collected from a range of
flowers giving a subtle flavour, but where beekeepers take
the hives to specific sites where only one type of flower
is available to the bees then monofloral honeys can be
collected. Examples of these are heather, borage, and
sometimes oilseed rape.