Honey

Golden in color, versatile in effect: honey is much more than a food. Essentially, honey is a concentrated sugar solution produced by honeybees from the nectar of plants. This sweet substance is a natural product that cannot be created synthetically.

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Honeybees obtain honey from the nectar of plant flowers. While flying from flower to flower and pollinating them, bees collect the precious flower nectar and suck it into their honey stomach with their proboscis. When they return to their hive, they regurgitate the stomach contents. During this time, the nectar has mixed with enzymes from their bodies, and some of the water content has already evaporated.

Now it’s the turn of the hive bees. These bees also take up the honey precursor several times, mix it with their saliva, and regurgitate it again. In this way, the sweet mass becomes increasingly thick in consistency. Later, the bees let it dry in a honeycomb, which they seal with their own wax – beekeepers call this process capping. Even when the honey is finished, the bees move it around multiple times within the hive.

The finished honey primarily serves the bees as food to sustain them through the winter. And the animals have to work hard to produce this nutrient-rich supply.

Honey consists of about 80 percent glucose and fructose, with the rest mostly made up of water. In addition, the sweet mass contains vitamins, proteins, enzymes, and minerals, including potassium, magnesium, iron, and calcium. However, the composition varies in detail among different types of honey.

Honey is attributed many positive properties. It has long been used in natural medicine. It can be administered both internally and externally. Many conventional doctors are now convinced of its antibacterial and healing-promoting effects. The antibacterial effectiveness is believed to be due to various ingredients. People used honey for wound healing as early as the Middle Ages. Today, research in this area has focused especially on the precious Manuka honey, which is now even specially processed and approved as a medicinal product.

As a remedy for coughs and colds, honey is a popular home remedy. Dissolved in hot milk, it is said to relieve cold symptoms.

The ancient Egyptians valued honey as the food of the gods and offered it to their deities.