How Is Honey Made
From Bee : Honey starts as flower nectar collected by a worker bee, which gets broken down into simple sugars (mainly fructose and glucose) and stored inside the honeycomb. The bees will then, through constant fanning of their wings, reduce the water content of the nectar to less than 20%. This is now considered by the bees to be ready and they seal the honeycomb with a wax capping, storing the honey for future use.
To Hive : Beekeepers manage the bees natural tendency to store honey by providing additional space within the hive for the colony to produce a surplus, all the while being mindful of not hindering colony welfare. This additional space is provide by separate boxes filled with frames of honeycomb, called ‘Supers’. These Super frames of honeycomb are harvested by the beekeeper, the wax capping is removed and the frames are placed in a centrifuge – an extractor – that spins the honey out of the comb.
To Home : After the honey is extracted, it is passed through a coarse filter to remove any remaining wax and other particles. From here the honey can be bottled and labelled. To be considered ‘Raw Honey’, nothing is added from Bee to Hive to Home.
