FAQ About Honey

Why do bees make honey?  

It is their food store for the winter, collected so that the colony can live through hard times and have a head start on other insects when spring returns. A colony of bees needs about 10 kilos of honey to get through the winter.

What does honey consist of?

About 83% sugar and about 17% water. Very little else. There are several sugars in the mixture but mainly fructose and glucose (also sometimes called laevulose and dextrose but this is not the place for details of sugar chemistry).

What is the “very little else”?

Always a few pollen grains get mixed in and these contain a tiny amount of protein.(and virtually no fat at all). Minute amounts of minerals – not enough to be significant to humans eating honey. Tiny amounts of colours, scents and flavours from the plants visited.

What’s the difference between runny and solid honey?

Time, mostly. All honey starts as a liquid and gradually the sugar forms crystals until it becomes solid. The more glucose in the mix the faster this happens, so OSR honey crystallises fast and heather honey very slowly.

My honey has gone solid. Should I throw it away?

No. it's still alright and has merely crystalllised. Take the lid off and warm it. Put the jar either in a pan of hot water or for a minute or less in the microwave and it will re-liquify.

Will local honey cure my hay fever or help my asthma?

Probably not, but it’s not a bad thing to try – you might enjoy the honey anyway.  The idea is that pollen is trapped in honey and eating it will make you resistant to allergens. Probably this will not work, partly because the pollen bees collect is not the same pollen that causes hay fever (mostly grasses). A little faith healing at work here!

Does honey “go off”? Does it have a “best before”date?

No is the short answer. Honey changes extremely slowly and if sealed will never be uneatable. However, if water can get in it may allow yeasts that are always in honey to start growing and the honey will ferment, forming a frothy foam. If you like beer flavoured honey you can still eat it but it’s not so nice!  The “Best Before”date on the label is there because the law requires it on all food, not because honey goes off. Most honey is given a date 2 years after it is bottled, but it might as well be 10 years.

Do all bees make honey?

No  The six or so kinds of honey bees in the world do (we only see one kind in UK)  Bumble bees store just one cell of honey, enough to get them through a bad week but nothing like enough to go through the winter.  Other bees (there are several hundred kinds of solitary bees) collect nectar as fuel for flying but don’t store it.

What is the best way to eat comb honey?

Comb honey includes the wax cells and sometimes a cell or two of stored pollen. You can eat the lot, though the wax will not be digested and has no food value. The pollen may sometimes add a bitter taste.  So... the top class way to eat comb honey is to turn the chunk of comb out onto a (silver?) plate, take a slice, put it on your plate and squash it with the knife. Then move the honey that has been squeezed out onto your toast. Leave the wax on the plate.  
Or just cut a chunk and eat it!

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