Articles
Oh Honey!
Honey, that sticky sweet liquid made by busy bees is absolutely loaded with vitamins, minerals, enzymes and pure goodness. Over thousands of years, it has been used to fight certain diseases, suppress a cough, heal a wound, bury the dead and more. We are so excited to share some of these amazing facts and benefits with you.
~ But before we get into the benefits, here are a few fun facts about honey! ~
- Honey has been around for thousands of years. In fact, it’s as old as the honeybee!
- Beekeeping has been practiced since 700 B.C.
- People use honey for food and medicine. Humans may have been using honey medicinally for as long as 8000 years.
- Apparently the body of Alexander the Great was embalmed with honey and because this “liquid gold” was fairly scarce, only the wealthy had access to it.
- The most fascinating aspect of honey is how it’s produced…mind blowing!
- Honey is the only food made by an insect or animal that humans eat.
A beehive usually consists of between 20,000-60,000 bees. These busy-bee workers pollinate, gather nectar, and return to the hive where they regurgitate the pollen laden nectar into another bee’s mouth. This process is repeated until the nectar is put into a honeycomb. About 4 million flowers are visited to make 1kg of honey!
At this point, the nectar is mostly a liquid so the bees use their wings to “fan” the honey, which causes the water to evaporate.
Eventually, the bees seal the honeycomb with a liquid from their stomachs, called propolis (bee glue). Propolis is one of nature’s most powerful compounds – a unique combination of plant bioactives and bee ingenuity. Made by bees from plant resins, propolis is used to protect, maintain and sterilise the beehive, where it acts as the immune defence mechanism for the whole hive.
A bee only lives about 4-6 weeks and has to travel thousands of kilometres to find the flowers and gather the pollen and nectar for the hive’s needs. At the end of its life, the bee’s contribution to he hive is one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey! Bees are the most amazing example of the power of team players.
The next time you purchase a bottle of honey, from your local bee-keeper, take a good look at this liquid gold and reflect on the sacrifice of the thousands of bees that went into making this for you.
BUT hold on just a moment… before we tell you all about the amazing benefits of honey, here are a few things to remember:
Please do NOT give honey to children one year of age or younger. Why? Because honey can have a bacteria called Clostridium botulism which can cause infant botulism. And, it can be fatal.
Be careful what you buy. originally people would have used raw honey, but today, most honey on supermarket shelves is processed, to prevent it from crystallisation. However, crystallisation is a natural process and does not mean the honey is “off”. Honey has unlimited shelf life if stored in an airtight container, in fact, honey found in the Egyptian pyramids was over 3,000 years old yet was still edible. By immersing the bottle in warm water the honey is easily brought back to its liquid state. All imported honey has been either irradiated or pasteurized or both. In these processes all the goodness is killed…
