In the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor there is a tomb named KV 62 that was cut during Egypt’s eighteenth dynasty. It belongs to the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen. Discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter, it is considered one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century. As was the tradition in ancient Egypt, the pharaoh was buried with a cache of artifacts, including furniture, garments, and food. Among these articles were clay vessels filled with olive oil and wine.
The vessels were inscribed with detailed notes naming the type of wine, the producer, the geographic region in which it was produced, and the date when the jar was sealed. Nearby were two more vessels described by Carter as drab pottery with double handles, bound with rush and secured with clay seals. The shoulders of these vessels carried the identification of the contents, written from right to left, in black hieratic script, depicting the word for honey bee. When the clay seals were removed, the insides of the jars revealed honey, completely preserved, still almost liquid, and retaining its original sweet aroma. These offerings of honey, olive oil, and wine were placed in King Tut’s tomb alongside his body because it was believed that he would need these items in his afterlife. More than three thousand years later, the olive oil and wine had spoiled, but the honey remained intact and edible.
Bees and honey played an important part in the everyday life of the Egyptians. They were the first nomadic beekeepers, floating their hives up and down the Nile following the seasonal blooms. Their main sources for nectar were orange, clover, and cotton. Honey was removed from the hives by smoking out the bees, then crushing the comb and straining the honey into clay jars. It was used as a culinary sweetener, as well as for mead and medicine. Ancient medical texts written on papyrus describe honey as being used for ointments and touting its therapeutic effects on wounds. The walls of tombs were rich in bee imagery depicting scenes of beekeeping and honey production. Cleopatra, the last ruling pharaoh, celebrated for her beauty, was said to be indebted to honey inside and out. After her ritual of bathing in milk and honey she indulged in her favorite snack, a sweet honey nut truffle called dulcis coccora.
Honey, like wine and olive oil, was considered a luxury by the Egyptians and was stored in clay amphorae or wooden flat-bottom vessels. The chards recovered from Tutankhamen’s tomb revealed that each amphora was carefully labeled with information including the honey’s source or provenance, the date and location of its production, and the name of the person who sealed the jar. The origin and quality of agricultural products obviously played an important role in ancient societies. The title “sealer of the honey” was given to those respected people who oversaw the act of sealing the honey-filled vessels, ensuring quality control. The descriptions of these practices are the earliest references to terroir and the high value placed on agricultural commodities.
The Science and Art of Making Honey
Honey is made by honey bees from the nectar of flowers. Inside every beehive is a honey-making factory buzzing with activity where nature’s virtuose are transforming the floral nectar into the sweetest elixir on the planet. A worker honey bee will make just 
teaspoon of this culinary masterpiece in her short life. Hundreds of varieties of honey are harvested here in the United States, and thousands around the world. Many are limited harvests, produced seasonally and remaining local to their region. The recipe never changes, only the flower, the nectar, the season, and the region in which it’s collected. It’s these factors that make every jar of honey unique in color, aroma, and flavor.
Honey is exclusively the creation of the female worker honey bees, who are also responsible for almost all other hive duties, including brood rearing, collecting nectar and pollen, cleaning house, building beeswax comb, defending the hive, and attending to the queen. The queen will outlive all of her daughters and sons because of her special diet of royal jelly, but she does not directly contribute to honey production in any way. The colony is also made up of a smaller, seasonal population of male bees called drones, whose main purpose is to mate with a queen from another colony, but they also serve other purposes. When drones are present the hive’s population is in balance. Drones act as heat sinks aiding the colony by giving off heat from their warm bodies on cool spring and summer evenings. They also produce a series of pheromones that help motivate workers to collect both nectar and pollen.
Worker bees begin foraging for water, pollen, nectar, and propolis (a resinous material used to repair and maintain the hive) when they’re about twenty-one days old. The honey-making process begins in a sunny field of blooming flowers, where a worker bee chooses to visit the most attractive flowers with the sweetest-smelling nectar. She hovers over its petals, then gracefully lands, probing the flower to locate the nectar, and begins sipping up the nectar with her long, tube-like tongue called a proboscis. When she is satisfied, she seeks out more flowers of the same species until her nectar-carrying storage container, called a honey sac, is full. Then she carries her bounty back to her hive. A worker bee’s tiny body is capable of carrying more than her own weight in nectar. While the bee is on the way home, the nectar is mixed inside the honey sac with an enzyme called invertase, beginning the transformation into honey. Once back at the hive she transfers her load to her sisters to continue the honey-making process.
A worker bee inside the hive accepts the nectar from the foraging bee and manipulates it with her mouthparts for a time, exposing it to the hive’s dry air, and adding even more enzymes. She then hangs it on the top of one of the hexagonal beeswax cells that make up the entire honey bee nest. After the nectar is placed in a cell, the bees set to work reducing its water content by fanning their wings to produce a continuous breeze, a process aided by the high temperature in the hive. This action dries and ripens the nectar, which, when it is dehydrated to about 17–18 percent moisture, becomes thick, sweet, pure honey. The bees consolidate the resulting honey from many partially filled cells to fewer cells that are full of honey. They then cover or cap each honey-filled cell with beeswax to keep it safe and fresh. Honey remains pristine inside these cells until it is needed by the bees to sustain the colony. Given sufficient space inside a hive and compatible weather conditions, a healthy, strong colony of honey bees will continually produce and store honey as long as nectar is available and they are able to collect it. The bees need some of this bounty for their daily food, and seek to store enough to see them through the winter. Any excess honey is what the beekeeper will harvest.
Scout Bees
Scout bees are specially designated worker bees that seek out the flowers by returning to familiar locations and searching for attractive scents for other foraging honey bees. Once a location is found that has a lot of flowers, each with nectar and high sugar content, the scout bee returns to the hive to communicate her findings to other foragers through a series of highly sophisticated dances that show the flowers’ location in relationship to the hive and the sun. She also shares the taste and aroma of the new flowers. After observing the dances and smelling and tasting a sample of the nectar, the other worker bees will determine if the source of nectar is attractive. If so they will set out from the hive to find that source of the nectar. If not, they wait for a scout with a better find. In any event, once the chosen source of nectar is found the worker bee uses the colors and designs on a flower’s petals, called nectar guides, in order to locate the nectary deep within each flower.
The Harvest
The best part of beekeeping is the sweet reward of the honey harvest, which comes both during and at the end of a prosperous season, depending on the floral sources of a specific region. When winemakers are harvesting their grapes and olives are being pressed into oil, beekeepers are extracting honey from the combs. Once the surplus honey has been completely cured and capped over by the bees, it is ready to be removed from the hive.
Inside each honey super, or wooden box, that makes up a modern beehive are multiple wooden frames. As bees make the honey, they fill the thousands of cells of beeswax honeycomb on each frame. When the frames are bursting with honey, the beekeeper’s work begins. To extract the honey from the beeswax, the beekeeper must first coax the bees away from the frames. There are several ways to accomplish this. One way is to gently guide the bees off the honey frames using a tool called a bee escape, which allows the bees from the top box of the hive to exit and go to the lower box by way of a one-way door. Once below, they can’t return. A second way is to apply an aromatic substance on a fume board, which sends the bees away from the frames to another part of the hive. Once the bees are moved away from the honey, the beekeeper can remove the boxes, or supers, that contain the frames and bring them to the honey house, where honey extraction can begin.
The first step in extraction is to bring the supers and their contents to room temperature so the wax will be soft and the honey will flow easily. Once warm each frame is removed from the boxes and the beekeeper, using a large, sharp knife carefully removes the beeswax covering from the honey-filled cells. The process is called uncapping and is usually accomplished using an uncapping knife, which can be room temperature or warmed slightly. Uncapping frames is done over a deep tray called an uncapping tank; as the cells are uncapped, the wax cappings fall into the tank below. The uncapped frames are then placed in racks inside a round stainless-steel tank called an extractor, which spins the racks and frames, using centrifugal force to spin the honey out of the beeswax cells, much like a lettuce spinner. As the honey is pulled from the cells by the spinning extractor, it hits the sides of the tank and runs to the bottom of the barrel, where it can easily be drawn from a gate at the bottom. When all the honey has been removed from the frames, the beekeeper opens the gate to access the honey. Honey runs out of the gate and usually passes through a course strainer to be collected in a container. The strainer catches any random wax particles, stray bees, or debris from the hive. The container is commonly a five-gallon plastic pail that has a sealable lid to keep the honey clean and safe. The pail is left to sit for several days, and any remaining pieces of wax, errant bees, air bubbles, or other material will rise to the surface. The beekeeper will skim this off, leaving clean, clear honey that is ready to be poured into bottles, labeled, and taken to market. This is the beekeeper’s reward.
Pollination
Honey bees not only make honey, but in the process of gathering nectar and pollen, they also pollinate many of our fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, spices, herbs, and ornamental flowers. Farmers rely on honey bees to pollinate plants like protein-rich clover and alfalfa to feed their livestock. Well-fed animals make our meats, eggs, cheeses, and milk tastier. Even the plants that provide the necessary fats and oils in our diet require honey bee pollination. Other popular crops that require pollination include coffee, chocolate, and cotton. A world without honey bees would mean a world without many of the foods and products we need every day.
Pollination begins when the tiny grains of pollen produced by the anther, the male reproductive part of the flower, are moved to the female part, called the stigma. Once on the stigma’s surface, the pollen produces a tube that grows down the style to reach the ovary, where fertilization occurs and the plant produces a seed. Once fertilization has occurred, a fruit begins to grow around the developing seeds. Pollinators such as birds, bats, butterflies, bees, and even the wind move pollen between plants. All benefit in the economy of nature; flowering plants are able to produce seeds, and pollinators are given nectar and pollen to meet their energy requirements to produce offspring.
Honey bees visit many flowers on a foraging excursion. Their hairy bodies naturally collect pollen while they move from flower to flower seeking nectar. A foraging bee will revisit the same kind of flower repeatedly on a single foraging excursion, a unique behavior called flower fidelity. If she prefers clover, she will be loyal to clover, moving pollen from clover blossom to clover blossom. This is how a pure, varietal honey is produced.
It is often easy to tell whether a flower has been pollinated. Fully pollinated cucumbers, for example, are straight and fully developed from end to end, not skinny on one end; melons and squash are firm, heavy and juicy, while each drupelet of a raspberry is plump. Apples that are properly pollinated are round and full. The seeds of a watermelon tell us a lot about pollination. The black seeds are pollinated, and the white seeds are not. The more black seeds, the sweeter and larger the watermelon. It takes pollinated seeds to produce the hormones that cause fruits and vegetables to grow, ripen and develop good flavor. Fruits or vegetables not fully pollinated are often lopsided and curl or twist into unusual shapes.
The Composition of Honey
The composition of honey varies depending on the source of the nectar and the type of soil, climate, wind, and sun that the plant is exposed to during a season. Of course, how well the honey is harvested and stored also has an effect on honey composition. Generally speaking, honey is a complex carbohydrate composed of approximately 80 percent monosaccharides, or simple sugars, mostly fructose (levulose) and glucose (dextrose) in varying ratios depending on the nectar source. The remaining content, approximately 16–18 percent, is water. Fructose is slightly sweeter than glucose and, when it occurs in larger quantities than the glucose, can lead to rapid crystallization of the honey. Over twenty-five other disaccharides have been identified in honey—sucrose, maltose, maltulose, kojibiose, and turanose among them—and also present are oligosaccharides, including erlose, theanderose, and panos. These are not naturally present in nectar but are formed during the honey ripening process.
One of the most important attributes of any honey is its water content. The average water content of most good-quality honeys is 17–18 percent, because bees make it that way, though there are a few exceptions. Yeast is also present in all honeys as a result of being in the environment in general, on plants, and in the hive. When water and yeast combine in honey, the honey remains stable because, even though the yeast can use the sugars in the honey as fuel, it needs more water to flourish. Honey is hygroscopic and when the water content is higher than 18 percent, the naturally occurring yeast begins to grow, using the water and the sugars in the honey, and thus beginning the process of fermentation.
Proteins make up about twenty-five percent of honey composition and there are at least 19 different ones present. The proteins are mainly enzymes added by the bees during the ripening process. Invertase, the most significant enzyme, is what sets honey apart from other sweeteners. This important enzyme enables the fundamental conversion of the large-molecule sugar sucrose, commonly found in nectar, to divide into the two smaller sugars that turn nectar into honey: glucose and fructose. Enzymes also add nutritional value and are highly sensitive to heat. Honey contains a few amino acids and the most important is proline, some of which is derived from the plant source and some added by the bees. Proline is the measure of honeys ripeness and is important standard for judging quality and flavor profile.
Most honeys are rather acid with a pH value that can range from 3.4 to 6.0. On average it is 3.9 and acidity increases with fermentation, but the acidity is camouflaged by its sweetness. Gluconic acid is the most prominent acid found in honey and it adds flavor-enhancing properties. It occurs when bees add their glucose oxidase to nectar during the ripening process to stabilize the ripening nectar against spoilage. It is also responsible for transforming the glucose into gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) imparting the anti-bacterial properties in honey. The anti-bacterial properties of glucose oxidase are most active when when eaten or when diluted in water.
Honey contains a wide variety of minerals including potassium and trace elements. In general, darker honeys that are stronger in flavor have a higher mineral content. These elements make it possible to identify different types of varietal honeys.
Honey also contains over six hundred volatile organic compounds (VOC) or plant-based essential oils, many originate from the plant and some are added by the bee. Each compound represents a detailed profile or fingerprint of any specific honey providing us with valuable information concerning the honey’s botanical and geographical origin. These VOC’s contribute to the sensory characteristics and act as floral origin markers giving every harvest of honey its unique aroma and flavor profile. Volatile organic compounds evaporate from honey when the honey is heated and this is why heating honey compromises its delicate flavors.
Honey can easily spoil without proper care and storage. Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is naturally present in all honeys and is a product of the decomposition of fructose. Its concentration increases in honeys that have been treated with heat or stored for extended periods of time at elevated temperatures. The HMF content is used as a standard criterion to measure freshness and its presence is an indication of honey that has been overheated. The higher the HMF number, the lower the quality of the honey.
Kinds of Honey
Honey is found in different forms depending on how it is harvested or prepared by the beekeeper, its water and sugar content, and even the local conditions.
COMB HONEY
Comb honey is liquid honey that has not been extracted and is still inside the original beeswax cells, exactly how the bees made it. Whether it is inside a hive managed by a beekeeper or inside a tree produced by wild honey bees, honeycomb could be considered virgin honey, untouched by humans. When the fragile beeswax comb is sliced or spread, the fresh liquid honey oozes out of the cells. The flavor is extremely delicate, and the waxy texture contrasts nicely on the palate with the smooth honey, providing a textural experience of smooth and chewy all in one bite.
Honey still in the beeswax comb can be obtained in several forms. The most natural is when the beekeeper provides the bees with a small round plastic or sometimes square basswood frame, called a section, for the bees to directly build their honeycomb in. These are generally about a quarter of the size of one of the wooden frames in which bees normally build their comb. When the comb is completely filled with honey and capped, it is harvested, covered with a protective wrap, and sold directly, container and all, to the consumer. This is comb honey at it purest, totally untouched by human hands.
Cut comb honey is a bit different. In that case, an entire frame is harvested, and, because it is large, the beekeeper cuts it into smaller pieces, about the same size as section comb honey described above, lets the honey from the cut frame edge drain overnight, then puts it in a protective package to sell.
And finally, there’s chunk honey, a mix of comb honey and liquid honey. Cut comb honey pieces are made small enough to fit into glass jars. Sometimes two, three, or more are cut, puzzle-like, to fit in a jar. Creative beekeepers may combine different types of comb honey, including a very dark honey, a medium honey, and a very light honey, in the same jar. The empty space in the jar is then filled with liquid honey, surrounding the chunks and adding an interesting visual dimension to a honey product.
Honeycomb is a special treat that should be experienced by everyone. Spread honeycomb on a slice of toasted bread alone or with butter. Or pair it with a handcrafted cheese, preferably a triple cream, and your favorite bread or cracker. It is not advisable to put honeycomb into hot tea unless you do not mind the tiny chunks of wax that float to the top or stick to the sides of your teacup. Since honeycomb is taken directly from the hive and handled minimally by the beekeeper, it is said to have more health benefits than most liquid types of honey. When selecting honeycomb, look for pearly white wax filled, preferably, with a lightly colored, golden honey. The wax cappings should be even and consistently smooth without stains or leaky punctures.
LIQUID HONEY
Liquid honey, also called extracted honey, is honey that has been separated or extracted from the wax honeycomb. There are many different techniques to extract liquid honey, and some are less invasive to its fragile properties than others. Once liquid honey has been harvested and separated from its original wax, its sensory qualities change depending on the technique used by the beekeeper. Liquid honey is the most versatile type of honey. It can be mixed easily into recipes or drizzled to pair with food or finish a dish.
CRYSTALLIZED HONEY
Liquid honey is a supersaturated sugar solution waiting to return to solid form. It does that when sugar molecules come out of the sugar-water solution and form sugar crystals by joining together and leaving the water behind. This crystallization begins with one sugar crystal adhering to a microscopic speck in the honey such as another sugar crystal, a piece of dust, or a pollen grain. Once that occurs, other sugar molecules have a substrate to adhere to, and they too can come out of solution. The crystal that is formed depends on the temperature of the honey, the size of the original crystal, and the ratio of glucose to fructose in the honey. Sometimes the crystals are large and grainy, both unattractive and unpalatable. But if the honey is “seeded” with tiny, fine crystals that are well dispersed in the jar, the finished product, a crystallized honey made of small, fine crystals, is delectable and the mouth feel is smooth, almost buttery.
The Products of the Hive
Besides honey, honey bees make other products of value not only to themselves but also useful to beekeepers. Beeswax, bee-collected pollen, propolis, royal jelly, and bee venom have been used for health and healing for centuries. Apitherapy, the science of using products from the hive (api means “bee”), is practiced around the world using these five products produced by honey bees.
BEESWAX
Beeswax is secreted from special glands on the underside of a worker bee’s abdomen. Neither drones nor queens can make beeswax. After harvesting honey, bee-keepers save the beeswax cappings, chunks of wax from errant comb the bees produce in stray places in the hive, from comb that’s been broken or damaged and is therefore unusable by the bees, or from comb that has grown old and dark. A colony of honey bees will need to produce and then consume several pounds of honey in order to create enough beeswax to fill the frames of the hive with honeycomb, so from a bee’s perspective it is a labor-intensive project. Harvesting and cleaning beeswax are also labor-intensive activities for the beekeeper, but beeswax has all sorts of uses, as elegant candles, healing balms and salves, and is pressed into sheets that are used as foundation inside the wooden frames for bees to begin building honeycomb on. Beeswax is used to wax skis, boats, and knitting needles.
NECTAR AND POLLEN
Honey bees gather both nectar and pollen from flowers during their foraging trips. Sometimes it’s just nectar; sometimes, when there is a large brood population waiting back home that needs a high-protein diet, the foragers collect only pollen; and sometimes it’s both. On the way back to the hive, the bees move any pollen sticking to their hairy bodies to special hairs on their back legs and in the process add a bit of nectar and sugar to the powdery pollen, along with special enzymes. The nectar makes the pollen easier to pack and when mixed with those enzymes allows the pollen to ferment, so that it can be stored for later use. Pollens vary from flower to flower in the amount of proteins they have, as well as the kinds of minerals and vitamins and even some enzymes they carry, so a colony of bees needs pollen from a wide variety of plants in order to maintain a balanced and nutritious diet.
In order to harvest some of the pollen that the bees have collected, beekeepers place special grids at the entrance to the hive that the bees must pass through, knocking off some of the pollen off their back legs that they bring back to the hive. The pollen is collected in a box below the hive and the beekeeper harvests it from there. Beekeepers sell this harvested pollen as a dietary supplement for humans or to save and feed back to hungry hives later in the season.
Honeydew
Honeydew is the sugary liquid waste secreted by aphids or scale insects after feeding on sap from some conifer or other trees. Honey bees will gather this liquid and carry it back to the hive and make honey from it. Also referred to as manna, honeydew is highly prized and in other countries is commonly consumed in culinary recipes and even as a medicine. Typically, honeydew honeys have lower amounts of fructose and glucose and higher amounts of complex sugars. Honeydew does not normally crystallize or contain pollen, nor is it considered blossom honey in the truest sense. It is usually very dark and high in dextrin and minerals. It is referred to by and marketed as the species of tree it is produced from and often called fir, oak, pine, beech, or spruce forest honey.
PROPOLIS
Propolis is a resinous substance that bees use to seal small cracks and crevices in their hives so pests and diseases can’t enter, to fasten hive boxes together, to give strength to fragile beeswax cells, to smooth rough interior boards, and even to seal large openings, like the front door if they feel it’s too large. Beekeepers call propolis “bee glue.” Propolis also has antibacterial and antifungal properties and is being studied for other medicinal properties. It is commonly used to treat a wide range of illnesses—minor cuts and scrapes, burns and abrasions for instance—and is sometimes found in natural mouthwashes, toothpastes, and throat lozenges.
To make propolis, bees first gather plant resins, mostly from the developing leaves and flower buds of certain trees in the spring and summer. Resin is secreted by the trees to protect the buds from insects and diseases while the buds are in their juvenile stage. The bees then add several enzymes to the resin, along with a bit of beeswax. Different trees produce different resins, so not all propolis is created equal. Beekeepers collect odd bits and pieces of propolis from woodenware inside the hive or harvest it more systematically by planting grids with tiny slits in the hive that the bees fill with propolis and the beekeeper can then remove by scraping it away. Propolis can be rolled into sticky balls and sucked on as a lozenge or mixed with grain alcohol as a tincture.
ROYAL JELLY
Royal jelly is a food produced in glands near the mouthparts of worker bees that are only a couple of weeks old. It is composed of sugar, protein, and a variety of enzymes, vitamins, and minerals. It is the best food there is for a honey bee, so all bees—workers, drones, and especially queens—are fed this special diet by these two-week-old workers for the first three days or so of life. The diets of workers and drones change to pollen and honey as they mature and develop, but queens continue to receive royal jelly all their life, and as a result develop into large, healthy, sexually complete females, rather than their less developed worker bee sisters.
Beekeepers can harvest royal jelly, with a great degree of difficulty, because there is very little of it to be found, and sell it for use by humans as health supplements or as additives to cosmetics. It can be mixed with honey and sometimes with pollen, but it is an extremely bitter, foul-tasting liquid to eat by itself. It’s a wonder bees eat it at all.
BEE VENOM
The most surprisingly beneficial product of honey bees is bee venom. People who suffer from ailments that traditional medicine has not been able to cure turn to the sting from a honey bee for relief. Bee venom therapy is similar to acupuncture in that micro-stings are given to patients along the same meridians in order to allow energy to flow. Bee venom therapy is used around the world to treat lyme disease, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.
