HOW TO MAKE HONEY FROM BEES

honey is a truly precious food used above all for its therapeutic, energetic properties and for its excellent nutritional values.

The uses of honey are truly vast but also surprising as this food is sometimes used almost like a biological medicine. The preciousness of honey lies in its being completely pure, coming directly from nature itself.

But how exactly is honey produced?

What are the biological mechanisms of bees and how do you manage a beekeeping business for honey production ?

How bees work

First of all, it is important to know which steps the bees use to produce honey. This particular process constitutes a truly precious work that is divided into several production phases.

First, bees need to collect the raw material which will then be transformed by themselves into honey. The primary source that bees need is nectar .

The nectar is found on many plants and varieties of flowers and is collected by bees thanks to an excellent job of collaboration and assignment of roles.

To search for the latter, exploratory bees are used, which are in charge of detecting the most accessible sources of nectar and then communicating it to the rest of the hive.

Subsequently the foraging bees take care of going to collect the raw material that will be taken not only from the flowers and plants but also on the trunks of the trees where different substances are taken.

It is important to distinguish nectar from honeydew .

Nectar is a sugary liquid produced by the glands of flowers, its smell attracts a lot of bees who, jumping from flower to flower to collect it, also participate in an important natural process, namely the exchange of pollen between flowers which then allows the reproduction of the latter. The process of exchange of pollen in flowers thanks to bees is called pollination.

As for honeydew, however, it is another sugary substance found mainly on tree trunks. Honeydew is a liquid released by other insects but bees are still attracted to it because thanks to this substance they can obtain a source of nourishment.

Bees have a mouth made up of a kind of tube. Any food must therefore be in liquid form. If not, they make it liquid, mixing it with their own secretion.

Transformation of nectar

Once the nectar has been taken, the bees collect it in a cavity called the honey bag, in which the nectar is added with enzymes produced by them. These substances contribute to the transformation of the nectar into honey.

Back at the hive, the foraging bees pass the nectar to the first bees they find at the entrance to the hive. These bees continue the process of transforming the nectar and finally store that liquid in special cells ... but obviously, the honey is not ready yet!

At this stage the honey is still too liquid and to thicken the bees try to raise the temperature in order to evaporate much of the water present in the substance. As? Well, through a truly extraordinary process. To raise the temperature, the bees first eat the liquid and keep it in their body for a while and then, after regurgitating it, they quickly flap their wings all around in order to take away any remaining moisture. / p>

This activity is carried out for more than a month with constancy until the humidity present is so low as to allow the honey to be preserved adequately over time without risking that mold and bacteria can reproduce in its indoor. In this way the bees will have a lasting supply of honey that they can keep for months in view of winter.

What the beekeeper does

In the honey extraction process, the beekeeper must know how to operate, when the time is right but above all how much honey to take.

The work of a good beekeeper is in symbiosis with his bees. A professional knows well the amount of honey that he will have to take and does not in fact remove more than is necessary. 

In honey production it is important to respect the work of bees that is carried out with constancy and diligence, so it is important to ensure the survival of bees by leaving them the honey supplies they need.

How to get honey

The process of honey removal is a procedure that must be carried out, obviously when the bees are far from the hive.

Usually the right time to extract the honey is when two thirds of the combs are sealed on both sides, that is when the cells filled with honey are covered with a layer of wax that seals them.

In fact, honey is stored inside hexagonal cells called honeycombs. The honeycombs are sealed with a wax cap that the bees remove for access to the stock when they need it. The beekeeper will therefore have to cut all the wax caps with a knife in order to allow the honey to escape.

After the honey has been extracted using special tools, it is important that the beekeeper takes care of the filtering that removes any impurities present in the substance.

After various processes that lead the honey to be in an optimal state, we proceed with the potting in which the substance is placed inside the different jars that allow it to be distributed and stored. Or, specific buckets or cans of variable sizes are used.

Where to buy quality honey

For the purchase of high quality honey choose Apicoltura Laterza!

You can directly buy honey online of different types and receive it in a few days thanks to fast and agreed shipping! To buy go immediately to: www.apicolturalaterza.it

We are a leader in the online sale of high quality honey . Our honey is a strictly 100% Italian product.