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About Honey: A Sweet and Versatile Natural Product

Honey, a natural product made by bees, has a history dating back thousands of years. It's used for food, medicine, and more, but its primary purpose is as a food source for bees, providing them with energy and heat.

Honey is made from nectar collected by bees, which is broken down into simple sugars and stored within the honeycomb. The honeycomb's design and the bees' wing-fanning process cause evaporation, creating the sweet liquid honey. Its color and flavor vary depending on the nectar source, ranging from light and mild to dark and bold.

Beekeepers harvest excess honey, which is then processed, strained, and bottled. The honey remains pure and natural, free of added ingredients.

Honey comes in many forms, from liquid to comb to crystallized. There are also over 300 honey varietals in the United States alone, each with its own unique characteristics.

Beyond its sweetness, honey offers numerous benefits:

• Nutrition: Honey contains vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and antioxidants.
• Sweetener: Honey is a versatile sweetener, adding flavor and functional benefits to various recipes. It can be used to balance flavors, provide moisture to baked goods, and even replace sugar in some recipes.
• Natural Energy: Honey provides natural carbohydrates, making it an ideal fuel for working muscles.
• Cough Suppressant: Honey can help soothe sore throats and suppress coughs, offering a natural alternative to over-the-counter cough medicine for children aged one and older.

Ensuring the purity and authenticity of honey is crucial. The honey industry is working to develop stronger testing methods and promote traceability, allowing consumers to know the origin of their honey.

Additionally, research is being conducted to explore the nutritional benefits of honey, focusing on its antioxidant properties, potential role in digestive health, and potential for promoting stress management.

ABOUT HONEY
The story of honey is older than history itself. An 8,000-year-old cave painting1 in Spain depicts honey harvesting, and we know it's been used for food, medicine and more by cultures all over the world since.
But honey isn't about humans. It's the natural product made by bees—one of our planet's most important animals. Honey bees visit millions of blossoms in their lifetimes, making pollination of plants possible and collecting nectar to bring back to the hive.
Lucky for us, bees make more honey than their colony needs, and beekeepers remove the excess and bottle it. Just like they've been doing since the beginning of time.

Source:
1 Ullmann, Fritz (2003). Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. John Wiley & Sons
HOW HONEY IS MADE
Why do bees make honey?
Honey bees collect nectar to create honey and store as food because it provides the energy for bees' flight muscles and provides heating for the hive in the winter. Fortunately, honey bees will make more honey than the colony needs, so it is necessary for beekeepers to harvest the excess, which they bottle.

Made Naturally by Nature
From Bee
Honey starts as flower nectar collected by bees, which gets broken down into simple sugars stored inside the honeycomb. The design of the honeycomb and constant fanning of the bees' wings causes evaporation, creating sweet liquid honey. Honey's color and flavor vary based on the nectar collected by the bees. For example, honey made from orange blossom nectar might be light in color, whereas honey from avocado or wildflowers might have a dark amber color.

To Hive
On average, a hive will produce about 55 pounds of surplus honey each year. Beekeepers harvest it by collecting the honeycomb frames and scraping off the wax cap that bees make to seal off honey in each cell. Once the caps are removed, the frames are placed in an extractor, a centrifuge that spins the frames, forcing honey out of the comb.

To Home
After the honey is extracted, it’s strained to remove any remaining wax and other particles. Some beekeepers and bottlers might heat the honey to make this process easier, but that doesn't alter the liquid's natural composition.
After straining, it's time to bottle, label, and bring it to you. It doesn't matter if the container is glass or plastic, or if the honey is purchased at the grocery store or farmers’ market. If the ingredient label says “pure honey,” nothing was added from bee to hive to bottle.
FORMS OF HONEY

Delicious in any form
Most of us know honey as a liquid in a bottle, but there are lots of other ways to enjoy this natural nectar. Comb, crystallized, liquid, whipped, and beyond—it just depends on what texture and usage you're looking for. Between the vast array of varietals and diversity of forms, there's a perfect kind of honey out there for every occasion.
HONEY VARIETALS

The color, flavor, and even aroma of honey differs, depending on the nectar of flowers visited by the bees that made it. There are more than 300 unique types of honey available in the United States alone, each originating from a different floral source.

Their shades range from nearly colorless to dark brown, while flavors go from subtle to bold; even the aroma of honey may be reminiscent of the flower. As a general rule, the flavor of light-colored honey is milder, and the flavor of darker-colored honey is stronger.

Varietal honey may be best compared to wine in terms of climatic changes. Even the same flower blooming in the same location may produce slightly different nectar from year to year, depending on temperature and rainfall.

Included above are just a few examples of varietals that you might not have known existed. For help finding a honey supplier or a specific varietal, visit the Honey Locator.

HONEY BENEFITS

In addition to being an amazing natural sweetener, honey has benefits that have gone largely unknown. It's a wholesome sore-throat soother, a natural energy booster, and more.

Nutrition
It's not just versatile, varied, and delicious. Research has shown that honey contains a wide array of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and antioxidants3. Flavonoids and phenolic acids, which act as antioxidants, are found in honey3. The amount and type of these compounds depend largely on the floral source3.
Sweetener
Honey is sweet—that’s a given. And it adds a special touch to almost every recipe. It can be your secret ingredient that's always revealing new possibilities. Many people think of honey as a drizzle in desserts or a topping for toast. But more and more, honey is being recognized as a pantry staple. It gives your recipes unbeatable flavor and unexpected functional benefits. From balancing flavors to providing moisture to baked goods, honey excels in a slew of tasks—all from one little bottle and only one ingredient.
As honey is slightly sweeter than sugar, you can use less to achieve the same amount of sweetness in a dish. When substituting honey for granulated sugar in recipes, begin by substituting honey for up to half of the sugar called for in the recipe. For baked goods:

• Reduce the liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup for each cup of honey used.


• Add about 1/2 teaspoon baking soda for each cup of honey used.


• Reduce oven temperature by 25 degrees to prevent over-browning.
  
Natural Energy
  Honey is a natural source of carbohydrates, providing 17 grams per tablespoon, which makes it ideal for your working muscles. Since carbohydrates are the primary fuel the body uses, honey can help maintain muscle glycogen, also known as stored carbohydrates, which gives athletes the boost they need when they need it most.
  
Cough Suppressant
  Honey has been used for centuries to help alleviate symptoms of the common cold, and now research confirms this approach for children ages one and older. Honey offers an effective and natural alternative to over-the-counter cough medicine4. Though time is the most important healer of a sore throat, a spoonful of honey can help relieve the irritation4.
  
Important Reminder
  Honey is a versatile and wholesome food for older children and adults. Honey may be introduced into a child’s diet after the age of one, but not before4, 5.
  CHAMPIONING PURE HONEY
  Purity Matters
  We believe the honey you love and consume every day should be wholesome and trustworthy. This is why we are committed to advancing stronger testing solutions to ensure the honey consumed every day is pure and authentic.

  Traceability is Key
  We are working closely within the industry to preserve the purity of our product and its ability to be traced back to its original location. We are educating both regulators and law enforcement agencies about these important topics.

  What Testing Methods are Used to Detect Honey Adulteration?
  Ensuring honey authenticity is one of the great challenges facing the honey industry today. Over the past half-century, a number of honey testing methods have been developed to detect food fraud. Here is a link to frequently asked questions about the strengths of each testing method.

  What Bee Health Means to Your Health
  We are also committed to supporting scientific research examining the nutritional benefits of honey to raise awareness of its lesser-known properties. This is why we are investing $1 million in scientific nutrition research over the next 5 years to explore the health benefits associated with honey. Areas of focus include antioxidant compounds in honey, honey's potential role in digestive health, honey in healthy eating patterns, and honey's potential in promoting stress management and mindfulness.