Hive Talk December 2021

Hive Talk - December 2021 A common question that is asked when talking about honeybees and honey is, ‘why is some honey runny, and some hard?’ Well, I’ll do my best to explain this phenomenon… First of all, bees ‘make’ the honey. The ‘forager’ honey bee will fly from flower to flower until their nectar sac is full and will return to the hive where they will pass this nectar to the worker bee. The worker bee will then mix magical enzymes from her body with the nectar to make honey. She will then place the honey in the honeycomb. As the workers are packing the honeycomb with freshly made honey they will only seal the honeycomb when the honey is at 18% moisture. The worker bees will fan the honey with their wings until ‘they know’ it is ready for capping. At this point the honey is ‘runny’. Now this is where the magic happens. Depending on the nectar collected from different plants, honey will either be soft or hard. Honey is mainly made up of glucose and fructose sugars. If the sugars are tipped towards the glucose sugars, the honey will crystalize. If the balance is towards more fructose levels, it stays runny. Honey derived from nectar collected from Canola crops in the Summer will crystallize after being in the containers for a couple of weeks. Spring nectar collected from spring flowers and trees, have more of a fructose balance, thus the honey will stay softer longer. Shoppers beware: Check your labels when buying honey. If it says ‘pasteurized’ it means that the big companies raise the temperature of the honey to the point where all the ‘goodness’ that the bees painstakingly produce is killed. You may as well buy a cheaper corn syrup. No wait, the big producers will add a significant amount of corn syrup to the honey so you are not getting 100% honey in the bottle. As long as there is a little bit of honey in the bottle, they can call it honey. Just a little plug to encourage you to support honey producers. Raw honey is the way to go if you're looking for a delicious, healthy treat.

Thank you to everyone who supported our season! We’re sold out! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!