Wait, is it really just nectar with less water content then? Could we make honey ourselves without all the bees by just collecting a bunch of nectar and evaporating off some of the water?
I think having thousands of insects collect that nectar is more efficient than trying to do it by hand. But I’d be curious to taste if the bees impart any additional flavor. I know honey made by giving bees primarily sugar water doesn’t taste like much, but there could be other stuff going on with the nectar inside the bee.
I grow gladiolus sometimes, and they produce a lot of nectar, but there aren’t any pollinators for those flowers around me, so I remove the nectar myself with a syringe. There isn’t a lot in each flower, but it’s nice in a cup of tea.
It doesn’t really taste like honey, even dilute honey. It doesn’t taste like just sugar water, either, though. I’m sure each flowering plant produces a subtly different flavor, like fruit.
And indeed, honey apparently tastes different depending what the bees are feeding on. But I’d say it’s probably a mix of something bee-specific and the nectar itself.
The bit about flowers creating different honey is VERY true, here in sweden it’s popular to make honey specifically from heather and it’s distinctly different from regular honey.
A big part of it is things that happen to the nectar while inside of the bees. That being said, synthetic honey does exist. They use specific types of bacteria to simulate what the bees introduce to it.
To expand on this… Part of what happens to the nectar inside the bee’s honey crop is the addition of various enzymes (IIRC invertase is one. I don’t recall any of the others) that modify the sugars and other compounds in the nectar.
So nectar goes in, the result of nectar + enzymes comes out, then it’s dried until the moisture content is low enough (~18% is what I was told as a beekeeper. Who knows how the bees measure it…)
Wait, is it really just nectar with less water content then? Could we make honey ourselves without all the bees by just collecting a bunch of nectar and evaporating off some of the water?
I think having thousands of insects collect that nectar is more efficient than trying to do it by hand. But I’d be curious to taste if the bees impart any additional flavor. I know honey made by giving bees primarily sugar water doesn’t taste like much, but there could be other stuff going on with the nectar inside the bee.
Have you ever tasted flower nectar?
I grow gladiolus sometimes, and they produce a lot of nectar, but there aren’t any pollinators for those flowers around me, so I remove the nectar myself with a syringe. There isn’t a lot in each flower, but it’s nice in a cup of tea.
It doesn’t really taste like honey, even dilute honey. It doesn’t taste like just sugar water, either, though. I’m sure each flowering plant produces a subtly different flavor, like fruit.
And indeed, honey apparently tastes different depending what the bees are feeding on. But I’d say it’s probably a mix of something bee-specific and the nectar itself.
The bit about flowers creating different honey is VERY true, here in sweden it’s popular to make honey specifically from heather and it’s distinctly different from regular honey.
My dad favours clover honey.
A big part of it is things that happen to the nectar while inside of the bees. That being said, synthetic honey does exist. They use specific types of bacteria to simulate what the bees introduce to it.
To expand on this… Part of what happens to the nectar inside the bee’s honey crop is the addition of various enzymes (IIRC invertase is one. I don’t recall any of the others) that modify the sugars and other compounds in the nectar.
So nectar goes in, the result of nectar + enzymes comes out, then it’s dried until the moisture content is low enough (~18% is what I was told as a beekeeper. Who knows how the bees measure it…)