And other facts to amaze your friends

By Jerry Hayes, Florida Dept. of Agriculture

Reprinted with permission from January/February 2008 issue of Countryside & Small Stock Journal (www.countrysidemag.com)

For most of you — if not all — there is not a whole lot you can do for, or with, your honey bees at this time of year. Your colonies are, hopefully, simply marking time, waiting for spring to officially come. Day length is increasing, even though it doesn't seem like it to you, and your queen will even begin laying eggs sometime in January or February as the colony prepares for a new season. Things are happening, but it is all pretty much independent of you — the beekeeper. Your opportunity to contribute was late last summer or fall. Now all you can do is dream and anticipate what your bees will be able to do in just a few short months. Will the spring be warm or cold? Is there enough moisture for the plants and crops? Have honey bees survived and are they building up? Do you have healthy bees? Will you get a honey crop?

Honey - that wonderful food produced in partnership by flowers and honey bees. What exactly is honey? Where does it come from, how can it be used and how has it been used in history? Well, if you didn't know already I'm going to share with you some very cool things about honey. It may give you even more ideas for what to do with your honey crop this year besides putting it on fresh homemade bread.

From the beginning

The almost dawn of flowers, as far as we can tell at this time, was 125 million years ago. It was an aquatic flowering plant that had its flower and seeds encased in immature fruit. (Maybe something like our water lilies of today.) Things had been going along okay for a very long time, with plants moving out of lakes and oceans and into tidal or swamp areas onto 'dry' land. Reproduction of these plants took several forms, most of which can still be seen today in the broad class of plants we call gymnosperms or naked seed (evergreens — pines, spruce, firs) and cycads, etc. These plants did not need - were not designed to need - much mechanical help getting their genes from point A to point B. For the most part, their strategy was to produce and dump tremendous quantities of the male element - we'll call it pollen - into the air at a prescribed time. Using gravity, breezes, updrafts and wind, the plant was gambling that this big puffy balloon-like pollen would float quickly around and bump into the appropriate female receptive structure on a like plant and the genes would be transferred. A new combination of genetics would be created which meant more diversity and greater chance of survival of the species.

Fast forward from 125 million years agoŠ.

Plants with true flowers appeared. These plants are called angiosperms, meaning a flowering plant. Seeds are encased within a ripened ovary (fruit). This change was a big deal and probably required insects to co-evolve with them and here is why. These flowering plants were designed to need a mechanical method of transferring pollen from one part of the flower to another or from one flower on one plant to another flower on another same kind of plant. These pollen grains, rather than being big and fluffy, were smaller, with many projections and surface convolutions, and were sticky. What to do, what to do?

If I were this plant having this flower with this kind of pollen, which is critical to my reproduction and survival, things aren't looking good. How can I partner with something small (insect) to come to my flower and get sticky pollen on it, then go to another same kind of flower and have this sticky pollen rub off in the right spot so fertilization may take place? (They - insects - must have some reason to come, either visual, scent or taste). I can use an attractive flower color; I can incorporate an attractive scent or aroma; I can develop sugary nectars that produce a highly attractive high carbohydrate food to lure them in and trade some of my resources for pollen transportation. The process is called pollination, when pollen actually gets to another flower. Give the insects a sweet food and they will come.

This strategy for survival worked and has been successful for at least 125 million years. It required adaptation by the flowering plants along with adaptation by insects to partner together for mutual benefit and survival. The plants/flowers developed insect-friendly presentations to assure the highest probability of pollen pick-up and delivery. The insects adapted by developing techniques and sturdiness to pick up pollen and to use and store surplus nectar. (Nectar is the sugary substance produced in flowers to attract pollinating insects.) This change in plants changed the world, and now the system was established. And you and I and our animals and many wild creatures are the beneficiaries of this sytem that produces approximately 33% of the food we eat.

Nectar is a high moisture carbohydrate (sugar) rich food for pollinators. In its natural form it doesn't store well at all. What happens if you leave a ripening fruit on your countertop? This high-moisture sugar-rich fruit rots and permits bacteria, mold, yeast, fungi and every combination of these to grow in this wonderful environment. Same thing with nectar. If not consumed, it supports microbial growth and gets fuzzy, like the stuff in your fridge. If you take fruit and mush it up and cook it so that the mixture has less water and a higher concentration of sugar - voilá - you have jam or jelly which is shelf-stable for much longer.

Honeybees collect nectar, which is high in both water content and natural yeasts which, if left unchecked would start to ferment. Allow the honeybee to deposit this nectar into an pen honey comb cell and direct a strong draft of air produced by fanning of wings across the cell, and much of the water evaporates. The reduction in water content to 18% or lower raises the sugar concentration and prevents fermentation. Keep the moisture content below 18% and honey will not ferment, and has a very, very long shelf life. In fact, honey has been found in the tombs of the Pharaohs of Egypt. Honey does not go bad.

All nectar produced by flowering plants is slightly different from other species of flowering plants, and can even be slightly different from year to year from the same plant. Plants are solar collectors and use the sun's energy and water and soil nutrients to produce sugars, which are the base stock for plants to grow and store. These variables can result in the slightly different taste and color of honey from year to year and plant species to plant species. Having hundreds of acres of one type of plant is unusual apart from a production agriculture setting, so most honey is a natural mixture of nectars from different flowering plants in as much as a two mile radius of the honey bee colony. This natural mixture varies from year to year and produces some very unique and special local or regional honeys. Natural honey produced by the beekeeper who does not artificially combine different honeys (grocery store honey) is very similar to fine wines in that there are very good years for color, flower and aroma, and other years when it is not as appealing. Every year is different and that is part of the fun and 'cachet' of being a beekeeper and honey harvester.

There is another kind of honey, called 'honey dew', which is not produced from nectar secreted by flowers. This can be very valuable as a consumer product. Honey dew is the sweet concentrated secretions of aphids or other sap sucking insects. Honey bees collect this concentrated sweet and use it as a base to produce honey just like they do with nectar. Germany has a famous reputation for honey dew honey produced in the Black Forest. Fir and pine dominate this region made famous by the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales. These evergreen trees have many sap-sucking insects that, with the help of honey bees, or vice versa, produce distinctive Black Forest Honey.

Some honeys will stay in a liquid state forever and some will granulate, or crystallize, very quickly. Crystallization, or the solidification of honey, is a normal, natural process. It does not mean that the honey has gone bad or is in any way inferior. Here is what happens:

Honey is a super-saturated sugar solution. Depending on the plant nectar source, the ration of fructose and glucose can either be at equilibrium or not. If not, then sugar crystals will form and grow, linking themselves together and changing the liquid honey to a semi-solid sugar crystal mix. Many consumers of honey in other countries prefer honey as creamed, spun or churned (crystallized). So a process for encouraging and controlling this has been developed. This process yields very fine crystals and a very smooth, creamy melt0in-your-mouth consistency. Because it is a semi-solid, it doesn't run and rip and get things as sticky on your table. It is much more user-friendly. Creamed honeys can be flavored or mixed with other ingredients such as nuts, dried fruits or spices.

Honey can be harvested and presented in other ways or forms. Which one(s) do you want to embrace?

1. Natural unfiltered, unprocessed liquid honey as it comes from your extractor. Sometimes called 'raw' honey, it is just as it is taken from the hive. The key factor here is that no heat treatments (heating the honey above 1200F to retard crystallization and/or fermentation) have been done. The honey may have bits of pollen, wax or other small particles in it. It may crystallize as it has not been heat-treated.

2. Comb honey is the honey still in the original bees' wax comb. The bees collected the nectar, the transformation to honey was completed in a single beeswax cell, and the bees put a lid on or capped the cell to protect and preserve that precious little bit of honey. Many cells capped in special wood or plastic frames to form small units of natural comb for harvest (wooden sections, Ross Rounds etc.) can be easily produced by all beekeepers. This is probably the most flavorful honey, with a wonderful aroma, because when you eat the honey comb (beeswax and all) this releases the aroma and flavor for the first time. It is not exposed to the air to lose flavor and aroma until the spoon digs through it. It is a taste of summer.

3. Chunk honey is a piece of comb honey placed in a jar, surrounded by liquid honey. It makes a nice visual presentation.

4. Strained or filtered honey is liquid raw honey that has been filtered using a large mesh filter medium such as cheesecloth to remove the larger pieces of wax, propolis, pollen chunks etc. It leaves behind smaller particles which can give the honey a cloudy appearance. It may crystallize, as it has not been heat-treated.

5. Ultra-filtered honey is liquid honey, processed using a very fine filter under pressure. This removes most all solids. The process uses heat — 150 to 1700F - to help make the honey less viscous so it will pass through the filter more easily. Ultra-filtered honey is typically very clear and does not crystallize as the high temperatures have removed any natural crystals that may begin a crystallization process. Valuable enzymes are destroyed and removed. It is a product that large supermarkets prefer.

6. Heat-treated honey, raw, strained or filtered, requires a heat treatment after extraction to kill natural fermentation yeast and melt small crystals. Heat treatment destroys enzymes and produces a product called hydroxymethylfurfural, which is a sign of honey deterioration. The heat also destroys the sensory qualities of honey taste and aroma, which is one of the reasons fresh honey is so wonderful.

Impress your friends

Take a look at some of these interesting tidbits that you can throw into your next conversation with friends about your bees and honey. You will impress your non-beekeeping friends.

• The word 'honeymoon' comes from a Norse (Viking) tradition that after a marriage the new bride and groom would drink mead (a honey beverage) for 30 days while they got to know each other better.

• In Jewish tradition, honey is the symbol of the New Year Rosh Hashanah.

• Honey is mentioned 61 times in the King James version of the Bible.

• Buddha, while in the wilderness, had honey brought to him by monkeys. In the festival of Purina, Buddhists remember this act and give a gift of honey to Buddhist monks.

• In some parts of Greece, long ago, it was a custom for a bride to dip her fingers in honey. This was to be sure to have sweetness in her marriage, but more importantly, to help her in relations with her mother-in-law.

• There is an entire Sora in the Qur'an (Koran) called the Bees. Muhammad liked honey and strongly recommended it for healing purposes.

• Researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign have discovered that honey - especially dark colored honey - contains as many antioxidants as spinach, apples, oranges or strawberries.

• Honey has great antibacterial properties. The fact that honey can heal open wounds was known several thousands of years ago. The use of antibiotics replaced honey for this use. But with the rise of germs resistant to almost all current antibiotics, honey is again becoming an agent in treatment of open wounds as a topical treatment.

• Honey was used to preserve the dead in many ancient cultures. Vlad the Impaler (a real guy), later known as Dracula, was killed in battle with the Turks. His head was cut off, preserved in honey, and shipped to Turkey as proof of his death.

• Some honey that comes from certain plant families can be poisonous. Honey from Rhododendron penticum and Azalea pentica contain alkaloids toxic to humans but harmless to bees.

• Pompeii the Great was warring against Heptakometes in Asia Minor around 1 BC. About 1000 of Pompeii's troops were traveling through a mountain pass and stumbled across a cache of honey. Accustomed to raiding and looting, they stopped and ate the honey. They soon became delirious and had violent seizures, vomiting and diarrhea. Well, it was tough to fight in this condition. The honey had been left by Heptakometes's soldiers as a poisonous bait. Pompeii's soldiers were easily defeated.

Honey has a long and interesting history. Now you are part of it. Pretty exciting, isn't it?

Bees on honeycomb