HONEY | How It's Made

It is the product of one of the most intelligent and industrious of creatures, whose miniature society is one of the most sophisticated in the animal kingdom. It's been used in religious and Pagan celebrations, and its medicinal qualities have been known for centuries.


It all begins in a field where worker honeybees suck nectar from flower blossoms, such as clover. They store it in their honey sack, then return to the hive where other worker bees suck it out and chew it, breaking down the nectar's complex sugars into two simple sugars called glucose and fructose. The bees then deposit the nectar into the cells of the wax honeycombs they've built. They fan it with their wings until most of the water content evaporates in the warm air of the beehive.


What's left is thick and gooey honey. The bees then cap each honey-filled cell with beeswax. That's when the beekeeper steps in. Bees will sting if taken by surprise, so the beekeeper sprays the hive with smoke from burning pine needles - a scented warning that foreigners are about to enter the hive. Inside the hive are wooden frames hanging side by side, each holding a honeycomb. A hive can house hundreds of thousands of bees, all descendants of the prolific queen bee.


The queen bee lays up to 2000 eggs per day, creating the work force needed to feed and protect the colony. But the beekeeper tricks the colony's defenders. He replaces the hive's cover with a device called a 'bee escape,' which smells like cherries. Bees dislike the scent so most fly to the bottom sections of the hive. Another warning spray, and the beekeeper removes the bee-escape. Now, he can escape with the honeycombs.


Inside the honey factory, they put the honeycomb frames on what's called an 'uncapping machine.' Like a razor, it shaves off the wax caps of the honey filled cells of the comb. They scrape off the remains manually. Then they set the frames on another machine called a 'honey extractor.' It spins the honeycombs until all the honey is forced out of the cells. Afterwords they filter the honey to remove any pieces of wax that have slipped through. Then the honey is ready for bottling.


Some beehives contain smaller frames designed to produce honey that isn't extracted from the honey comb. Workers remove the frame and cut the honeycomb into pieces with a heated knife. This seals the wax around the honey inside. This wax is edible. The beeswax lining of the honeycomb goes to make candles, furniture polish and lipsticks.


When producers have more honey than they can sell, they simply let it granulate, where it develops sugar crystals that turn hard and white. Then when orders come in, they return it to its original liquid form by heating it to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The jars are vacuum cleaned, then filled.


One beehive can yield over three kilograms of honey in a single day. That's much more than the bees need for themselves. The surplus is what we end up eating. Honey production today is both efficient and humane. For centuries, the only way to harvest honey from hives had been to kill the bees. Then in 1851, an American beekeeper invented a way to get the honey, yet spare the bees. His method, with the removable honeycomb frames, is the one we still use today.