Honey ( /ˈhʌni/) is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees (the genus Apis) is the one most commonly referenced. It is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans. Honey produced by other bees and insects has distinctly different properties.
Honey bees transform nectar into honey by a process of regurgitation and evaporation. They store it as a primary food source in wax honeycombs inside the beehive.
Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides, fructose, and glucose, and has approximately the same relative sweetness as that of granulated sugar. It has attractive chemical properties for baking, and a distinctive flavor that leads some people to prefer it over sugar and other sweeteners. Most microorganisms do not grow in honey because of its low water activity of 0.6. However, honey sometimes contains dormant endospores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to infants, as the endospores can transform into toxin-producing bacteria in the infant's immature intestinal tract, leading to illness and even death (see Health hazards below).
Honey has a long history of human consumption, and is used in various foods and beverages as a sweetener and flavoring. It also has a role in religion and symbolism. Flavors of honey vary based on the nectar source, and various types and grades of honey are available. It is also used in various medicinal traditions to treat ailments. The study of pollens and spores in raw honey (melissopalynology) can determine floral sources of honey. Because bees carry an electrostatic charge, and can attract other particles, the same techniques of melissopalynology can be used in area environmental studies of radioactive particles, dust or particulate pollution.
Read more about Honey: Formation, Physical and Chemical Properties, In History, Culture, and Folklore, Collecting Honey, Nutrition, Classification, Preservation, In Medicine, Honey-producing and Consuming Countries, Gallery of Honey Harvesting
Other articles related to "honey":
... Apiculture should be given more attention because honey as the main bee product is irreplaceable in nutrition ... Besides honey, bee products are considered to be wax used in chemical and pharmaceutical industry, propolis, royal jelly and bee venom ... Honey production is an additional activity of the population by which the family budgets are increased ...
... Bitter Honey is the solo debut album by American singer/songwriter and Clem Snide head Eef Barzelay ... Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Ballad of Bitter Honey" as one of the 100 Best Songs of 2006 ...
... "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance" is a song recorded by Henry Thomas in 1928 ... The album included Thomas's recording "Honey, Won't You Allow Me One More Chance?" and was probably the source of Dylan's version ...
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... Lamarck's honey bee or the Egyptian honey bee is a subspecies of honey bee native to the Nile valley of Egypt and Sudan, named after Jean-Baptiste Lamarck ... It is considered defensive, low in honey yield and exhibiting good hygienic behavior ... It is a dark honey bee with yellow abdomen, and is a small subspecies like the races South of the Sahara ...
Famous quotes containing the word honey:
“And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“I eat my peas with honey,”
—Unknown. I Eat My Peas with Honey (l. 1)
“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what you will, is the great high-road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)