Honey
This refinement takes place both within individual bees, through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, and during storage in the hive, through water evaporation that concentrates the honey's sugars until it is thick and viscous.
Several cave paintings in Cuevas de la Araña in Spain depict humans foraging for honey at least 8,000 years ago.
Bees value honey for its sugars, which they consume to support general metabolic activity, especially that of their flight muscles during foraging, and as a food for their larvae.
The majority of nectar collected is not used to directly nourish the insects but is instead destined for regurgitation, enzymatic digestion, and finally long-term storage as honey.
[13][15] During cold weather or when other food sources are scarce, adult and larval bees consume stored honey, which is many times more energy-dense as the nectar from which it is made.
Once it is in their own honey stomachs, the hive bees regurgitate the nectar, repeatedly forming bubbles between their mandibles, speeding its digestion and concentration.
These bubbles create a large surface area per volume and by this means the bees evaporate a portion of the nectar's water into the warm air of the hive.
The smoke triggers a feeding instinct (an attempt to save the resources of the hive from a possible fire), making them less aggressive, and obscures the pheromones the bees use to communicate.
[8] Honey is sometimes adulterated by the addition of other sugars, syrups, or compounds to change its flavor or viscosity, reduce cost, or increase the fructose content to inhibit crystallization.
[43] The physical properties of honey vary, depending on water content, the type of flora used to produce it (pasturage), temperature, and the proportion of the specific sugars it contains.
[63] Minor amounts of other organic acids are present, consisting of formic, acetic, butyric, citric, lactic, malic, pyroglutamic, propionic, valeric, capronic, palmitic, and succinic, among many others.
[65][66][67] VOCs are carbon-based compounds that readily vaporize into the air, providing aroma, including the scents of flowers, essential oils, or ripening fruit.
[65][67] The typical chemical families of VOCs found in honey include hydrocarbons, aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, esters, acids, benzenes, furans, pyrans, norisoprenoids, and terpenes, among many others and their derivatives.
Typical examples of North American monofloral honeys are clover, orange blossom, sage, tupelo, buckwheat, fireweed, mesquite, sourwood,[71] cherry, and blueberry.
Some typical European examples include thyme, thistle, heather, acacia, dandelion, sunflower, lavender, honeysuckle, and varieties from lime and chestnut trees.
[citation needed] The unique flora of Australia yields a number of distinctive honeys, with some of the most popular being yellow box, blue gum, ironbark, bush mallee, Tasmanian leatherwood, and macadamia.
A fluffy film on the surface of the honey (like a white foam), or marble-colored or white-spotted crystallization on a container's sides, is formed by air bubbles trapped during the bottling process.
[116][117] For treating children, the systematic review concluded with moderate to low evidence that honey helps more than no treatment, diphenhydramine, and placebo at giving relief from coughing.
[120] The World Health Organization recommends honey as a treatment for coughs and sore throats, including for children, stating that no reason exists to believe it is less effective than a commercial remedy.
[129] Honey is generally safe when taken in typical food amounts,[118][125] but it may have various, potential adverse effects or interactions in combination with excessive consumption, existing disease conditions, or drugs.
[118] Honey consumption may interact adversely with existing allergies, high blood sugar levels (as in diabetes), or anticoagulants used to control bleeding, among other clinical conditions.
Less commonly, low blood pressure, shock, heart rhythm irregularities, and convulsions may occur, with rare cases resulting in death.
[136] Toxic honey may also result when bees are proximate to tutu bushes (Coriaria arborea) and the vine hopper insect (Scolypopa australis).
[137] Only a few areas in New Zealand (the Coromandel Peninsula, Eastern Bay of Plenty Region and the Marlborough Sounds) frequently produce toxic honey.
Since December 2001, New Zealand beekeepers have been required to reduce the risk of producing toxic honey by closely monitoring tutu, vine hopper, and foraging conditions within 3 km (2 mi) of their apiary.
[143][144][145] In ancient Georgia, several types of honey were buried with a person for journeys into the afterlife, including linden, berry, and meadow-flower varieties.
In 594 BCE,[148] beekeeping around Athens was so widespread that Solon passed a law about it: "He who sets up hives of bees must put them 300 feet [90 metres] away from those already installed by another".
[152] Modern biblical researchers long considered that the original Hebrew word used in the Bible, (דבש, devash), refers to the sweet syrup produced from figs or dates, because the domestication of the honey bee was completely undocumented through archaeology anywhere in the ancient Near East (excluding Egypt) at the time associated with the earlier biblical narratives[152] (books of Exodus, Judges, Kings, etc.).
In 2005, however, an apiary dating from the 10th century BC was found in Tel Rehov, Israel that contained 100 hives, estimated to produce half a ton of honey annually.
According to his teachings (hadith), Muhammad strongly recommended honey for healing purposes.The Quran promotes honey as a nutritious and healthy food, saying: And thy Lord taught the Bee to build its cells in hills, on trees, and in (men's) habitations; Then to eat of all the produce (of the earth), and find with skill the spacious paths of its Lord: there issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colours, wherein is healing for men: verily in this is a Sign for those who give thought.
