Have you ever wondered where the honey comes from? Many people love this sweet product, but not everyone knows how it appears - perhaps only beekeepers, both professionals and amateurs, are aware of this process. The rest perceive honey as something that naturally arises, but in reality the formation of this product is a complex process. In this article we will talk about where the linden honey comes from, what are its beneficial properties, and what are the contraindications to its use.
What happens honey
Naturally, bees do this. Find out where the honey from the bees comes from.
Scout bees fly out of the hives and set off in search of flowers. Depending on the region and time of year, they may be interested in different plants, for example, buckwheat, honey from which has a sharp taste and a dark shade, or linden, from which honey of light amber color is obtained, the most popular in Russia.
In addition, it can be other flowers - clover, acacia, sunflower, oregano. All of them have a pronounced aroma, so the result is a very fragrant honey of different taste gradations. Usually one taste note prevails, but depending on the weather, the situation may develop in different ways. So, if the summer was very arid or, on the contrary, rainy, honey may not be very tasty, but this, of course, is not the fault of the bees. In such lean years, there is a high risk of buying low-quality honey, diluted with sugar, both during the creation process (bees can feed them) and as a result of adding it to the finished product.
Manufacturing process
Let's get back to the question of where the honey comes from. Upon their return, the bees transmit all the necessary information to the rest of the hive inhabitants through peculiar movements that look like a kind of ritual dance. After that, the field bees go to nectar for the desired flowers. Insects sit on them and collect the maximum possible amount of fluid in a specially designed ventricle. After that, the bees return to the hives, and their companions, working bees, take nectar from their stomachs and oral cavity and chew the extracted liquid for hours. In order to process one portion of nectar, they will need at least thirty minutes, during which complex carbohydrates will be split into simpler ones. However, this is not honey yet - the resulting viscous liquid must be laid in a pre-prepared honeycomb and dried, and then seal the honeycomb with wax. Wax is secreted by bees in special glands.
Why bees honey?
Thus, we found out how honey appears, but why is it needed? If you do not pump it out of the honeycombs, as is usually the case with home hives in late summer, then the bees will use the resulting product for their needs. Under natural conditions, insects would sooner or later eat it, most likely in winter. In addition, bees can lay eggs in formed honeycombs, and then honey will become food for larvae that hatch from eggs.
How do beekeepers work?
A man began to use honey since ancient times, and if before the hunters hunted for honey, at the risk of their life they got sweet liquid from wild bees, now beekeepers and beekeepers are doing this. They know very well where the honey comes from and how to extract it from the honeycombs.
Professional beekeepers try to rebuild life in the hive so that the bees produce more honey than is necessary for their survival. This is done so as not to disrupt the natural course of events and not to feed insects with sugar in winter - this is considered wrong among beekeepers.
Ways to extract honey
So, we found out where the honey comes from, and now we’ll talk about how to get it. You can take honey with or without honeycombs. Why do we need honeycombs? Some beekeepers claim that this is the only possible way to try a real sweet product, and many people just like the taste of wax soaked with honey - it is really sweet and healthy. However, this method of extraction is more likely to be used in those cases if the next summer they don’t plan to deal with the hive - after all, the bees will have to sculpt the honeycombs again, and only then engage in pumping honey into them. If honeycombs are not taken, the bees can immediately begin to produce sweet honey when the flowering season begins. In addition, the process of collecting liquid without extracting the honeycomb from the hive using the technology is not particularly complicated.
And most beekeepers prefer the second method of extracting honey, without damaging the honeycombs - it allows you to use the hives for many years, because insects do not have to spend a lot of energy on the constant reconstruction of storages.
Honey: properties and contraindications
Traditional medicine makes extensive use of the beneficial properties of honey. Most often it is used for colds - a cup of very warm milk with honey and butter at night has been known to many since childhood as a good way to “sweat” and eliminate a cough. It enhances immunity, has antiviral and antibacterial effects, which is why it is recommended as an adjunct during various infections. This sweet liquid contains a lot of potassium, which has the ability to kill bacteria.
Also, honey is used in cosmetology, in particular in the form of a variety of masks. For example, a honey mask with almond oil improves skin tone and tones it. Many cosmetic companies use honey as part of masks, serums, scrubs and lip balms.
In addition, there are honey diets. Contrary to expectations, honey helps to lose weight, although it is very sweet and, it would seem, the maximum that it can do is help to get fat. However, it breaks down fats.
Also, honey is recommended to be used for diseases of the nervous system as a restorative and sedative.
Possible allergies
Of course, this product has many useful properties for the human body, but there is also a contraindication to its use - this is an allergy. Unfortunately, such a reaction to honey is far from uncommon, therefore, it should be careful to give the beekeeping product to children. In addition, it is worthwhile to be careful about the golden sweetness for diabetics and discuss with your doctor the benefits of honey for your body.
Fakes
Unfortunately, it is easy for a person unaware of the intricacies of honey production to run into low-quality goods while making a purchase. How to distinguish a quality product from a fake?
We will exclude the situation when you live in the private sector - it is much easier to navigate in the choice, because you can always ask the locals who of the beekeepers sells the highest quality goods.
To understand whether this is a natural product, you can taste it - real honey without additives will slightly bitter. If the liquid is too sugary, most likely this means that the careless beekeeper added too much sugar there.
You can also focus on consistency, however, so you can only determine whether it is worth buying honey from the same seller next summer - because the consistency of the product changes only by winter. Then it should begin to sugar and thicken, otherwise, again, again, it contains a lot of sugar. At the time of direct purchase, it is difficult to understand whether honey is good - a fresh young product is usually very liquid.
In addition, if you trust your instinct, you can sniff honey. The thicker and tastier it smells, the more likely it is that it is real.
Thus, we talked about how honey appears. We discussed what its beneficial properties are and how to distinguish a fake product from a natural one. However, ignorance of where the honey comes from, most often does not prevent a person from using it as a dessert or medicine.