What is Honey?
Honey is primarily composed of fructose, glucose and water. It also contains other sugars as well trace enzymes, minerals, vitamins and amino acids.
Honey is "manufactured" in one of the world's most efficient factories, the beehive. Bees may travel as far as 55,000 miles and visit more than two million flowers to gather enough nectar to make just a pound of honey.
The color and flavor of honey differ depending on the bees' nectar source (the blossoms). In fact, there are more than 300 unique kinds of honey in the United States, originating from such diverse floral sources as Clover, Eucalyptus and Orange Blossoms. In general, lighter colored honeys are mild in flavor; while darker honeys are usually more robust in flavor.
To make honey from nectar, honey bees evaporate much of the moisture and add compounds called enzymes that change the composition of the nectar. Some of the complex sugars are broken down into simpler ones; and some of the sugar is converted into an edible acid called gluconic acid. This process helps to give honey it's distinctive taste. When the moisture content of the honey is reduced to about 17%, the bees fill the small cells of the comb and seal them with a white beeswax capping. We can then remove the sealed combs from the beehives to use them on our table as comb honey or to have them extracted for use as liquid honey. You need not worry about eating the wax with the honey because beeswax is a completely wholesome product.
Raw honey contains small amounts of the same resins found in propolis. Propolis, sometimes called "bee glue," is actually a complex mixture of resins and other substances that honeybees use to seal the hive and make it safe from bacteria and other micro-organisms. Honeybees make propolis by combining plant resins with their own secretions.
In addition to gathering nectar to produce honey, honey bees perform a vital second function - pollination. About one-third of the human diet is derived from insect-pollinated plants, and honey bees are responsible for 80 percent of this pollination.
Pollination is the fertilization of a flowering plant. It occurs when pollen is transferred from the anthers of a flower to the ovules of that or another flower. Honey bees are responsible for pollinating a variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes and more.
In addition to its reputation as Nature's nutritive sweetener, research also indicates that honey's unique composition makes it useful as an antimicrobial agent and antioxidant.
In a study involving 105 children aged 2-18 years with upper respiratory tract infections of 7 days or less and night-time coughing, a single night-time dose of buckwheat honey was an effective alternative treatment for symptomatic relief of nocturnal cough and sleep difficulty, compared to a single dose of dextromethorphan (DM).
Researchers from the Penn State College of Medicine asked parents to give either honey, honey-flavored dextromethorphan (DM), or no treatment to the children. The first night, the children did not receive any treatment. The following night they received a single dose of buckwheat honey, honey-flavored DM, or no treatment 30 minutes before bedtime. The trial was partially blind as parents could not distinguish between the honey and the medication, although those administering no medication were obviously aware of the fact. Parents were asked to report on cough frequency and severity, how bothersome the cough was, and how well both adult and child slept, both 24 hours before and during the night of the dosage.
Significant symptom improvements were seen in the honey-supplemented children, compared with the no treatment group and DM-treated group, with honey consistently scoring the best and no-treatment scoring the worst. Based on parental "symptom points," children treated with honey improved an average of 10.71 points compared with 8.39 points for DM-treated children and 6.41 points for those who were not treated.
These results might be good news for parents of children two years and older, since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently recommended that children under six should not be given over-the-counter cough and cold medicines, due to potentially harmful side effects. However, it's important to note that this study did not attempt to test the potential benefits of buckwheat honey for children under two, and recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and other children's health organizations for a total avoidance of honey by children one year and younger still make good sense. (The AAP's major concern here is unnecessary risk of infantile botulism that might result from the presence of Clostridium botulinum bacteria in the honey).
An International Symposium Discusses Likely Benefits of Honey
Speakers at the First International Symposium on Honey and Human Health, held in Sacramento, CA, January 8, 2008, presented a number of research papers. (Fessenden R. Report to the Committee for the Promotion of Honey and Health) Findings include:
* Different varietals of honey possess a large amount of friendly bacteria (6 species of lactobacilli and 4 species of bifidobacteria), which may explain many of the "mysterious therapeutic properties of honey."
* Lactobacilli, which deliver protective and beneficial benefits to bees as well as humans, were not found in the bees' honey stomach during the winter months when the bees under investigation were fed sucrose, indicating that certain bee-feeding practices may have dangerous and unwanted effects on bees.
* Honey may promote better blood sugar control. Proper fueling of the liver is central to optimal glucose metabolism during sleep and exercise. Honey is the ideal liver fuel because it contains a nearly 1:1 ratio of fructose to glucose. Fructose "unlocks" the enzyme from the liver cell's nucleus that is necessary for the incorporation of glucose into glycogen (the form in which sugar is stored in the liver and muscle cells). An adequate glycogen store in the liver is essential to supply the brain with fuel when we are sleeping and during prolonged exercise. When glycogen stores are insufficient, the brain triggers the release of stress hormones - adrenalin and cortisol - in order to convert muscle protein into glucose. Repeated metabolic stress from cortisol produced when less than optimal liver glycogen stores are available during sleep, leads over time, to impaired glucose metabolism, insulin resistance, diabetes, and increased risk for cardiovascular disease and obesity.
* Experimental evidence indicates that consumption of honey may improve blood sugar control and insulin sensitivity compared to other sweeteners. The body's tolerance to honey is significantly better than to sucrose or glucose alone. Individuals with greater glucose intolerance (e.g., those with mild diabetes and Type 1 diabetes) showed significantly better tolerance to honey than sucrose. In addition, the antioxidants in honey, which have been shown to reduce oxidative stress, frequently by a larger factor than can be explained by their actual amount, may be beneficial for diabetics and help to improve endothelial function (the function of the cells that make up the lining of our blood vessels) and vascular health.
* In a year-long animal study comparing the effects of sucrose, honey and a low glycemic index (GI) sugar-free diet, rats on the honey-based diet showed: reduced weight gain and percentage of body fat, decreased anxiety, better spatial recognition memory, improved HDL cholesterol (15-20% higher than rats fed sugar or sucrose diets), improved blood sugar levels (HA1c), and reduced oxidative damage.
* Honey has been shown to be a more effective cough suppressant for children ages 2-18 than dextromethorphan (see "One Study Finds Buckwheat Honey To Be a Successful Cough Medicine" earlier in this Health Benefits section)
* Honey boosts immunity. Research conducted in several hospitals in Israel found honey effective in decreasing the incidence of acute febrile neutropenia (when high fever reduces white blood cell count) in 64% of patients. Honey also reduced the need for Colony Stimulating Factor (a compound produced in the cells lining the blood vessels that stimulate bone marrow to produce more white blood cells) in 60% of patients with acute febrile neutropenia; increased neutrophil count (another type of white blood cell), decreased thrombocytopenia (low platelet count), and stabilized hemoglobin levels at >11 gm/dl (a bit low but way better than full blown anemic).
* 32% of the cancer patients involved in the above immunity research reported improved quality of life.
A Spoonful a Day Keeps Free Radicals at Bay
Daily consumption of honey raises blood levels of protective antioxidant compounds in humans, according to research presented at the 227th meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, CA, March 28, 2004. Biochemist Heidrun Gross and colleagues from the University of California, Davis, gave 25 study participants each about four tablespoons buckwheat honey daily for 29 days in addition to their regular diets, and drew blood samples at given intervals following honey consumption. A direct link was found between the subjects' honey consumption and the level of polyphenolic antioxidants in their blood.
About the Honeybee
Honey bees are a subset of bees, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests out of wax. Honey bees are the only extant members of the tribe Apini, all in the genus Apis. Currently, there are only seven recognized species of honey bee with a total of 44 subspecies (Engel, 1999) though historically, anywhere from six to eleven species have been recognized. Honey bees represent only a small fraction of the approximately 20,000 known species of bees. Some other types of related bees produce and store honey, but only members of the genus Apis are true honey bees.
As in a few other types of eusocial bees, a colony generally contains one queen bee, a fertile female; seasonally up to a few thousand drone bees or fertile males; and a large seasonally variable population of sterile female worker bees. Details vary among the different species of honey bees, but common features include:
Eggs are laid singly in a cell in a wax honeycomb, produced and shaped by the worker bees. Larvae are initially fed with royal jelly produced by worker bees, later switching to honey and pollen. The exception is a larva fed solely on royal jelly, which will develop into a queen bee. The larva undergoes several moltings before spinning a cocoon within the cell, and pupating. Drones hatch from unfertilized eggs, females (Queens and worker bees) hatch from fertilized eggs. The queen actually can choose to fertilize the egg she is laying, usually depending on what cell she is laying in.
Young worker bees clean the hive and feed the larvae. When their royal jelly producing glands begin to atrophy, they begin building comb cells. They progress to other within-colony tasks as they become older, such as receiving nectar and pollen from foragers, and guarding the hive. Later still, a worker takes her first orientation flights and finally leaves the hive and typically spends the remainder of her life as a forager.
Worker bees cooperate to find food and use a pattern of "dancing" (known as the bee dance or waggle dance) to communicate information regarding resources with each other; this dance varies from species to species, but all living species of Apis exhibit some form of the behavior. If the resources are very close to the hive, they may also exhibit a less specific dance commonly known as the "Round Dance".
Honey bees also perform tremble dances which recruit receiver bees to collect nectar from returning foragers .
Virgin queens go on mating flights away from their home colony, and mate with multiple drones before returning. The drones die in the act of mating.
Colonies are established not by solitary queens, as in most bees, but by groups known as "swarms", which consist of a mated queen and a large contingent of worker bees. This group moves en masse to a nest site that has been scouted by worker bees beforehand. Once they arrive, they immediately construct a new wax comb and begin to raise new worker brood. This type of nest founding is not seen in any other living bee genus, though there are several groups of Vespid wasps which also found new nests via swarming (sometimes including multiple queens). Also, stingless bees will start new nests with large numbers of worker bees, but the nest is constructed before a queen is escorted to the site, and this worker force is not a true "swarm"
Information provided by The National Honey Board, Whole Foods, Wikipedia and The George Mateljan Foundation
Honey is primarily composed of fructose, glucose and water. It also contains other sugars as well trace enzymes, minerals, vitamins and amino acids.
Honey is "manufactured" in one of the world's most efficient factories, the beehive. Bees may travel as far as 55,000 miles and visit more than two million flowers to gather enough nectar to make just a pound of honey.
The color and flavor of honey differ depending on the bees' nectar source (the blossoms). In fact, there are more than 300 unique kinds of honey in the United States, originating from such diverse floral sources as Clover, Eucalyptus and Orange Blossoms. In general, lighter colored honeys are mild in flavor; while darker honeys are usually more robust in flavor.
To make honey from nectar, honey bees evaporate much of the moisture and add compounds called enzymes that change the composition of the nectar. Some of the complex sugars are broken down into simpler ones; and some of the sugar is converted into an edible acid called gluconic acid. This process helps to give honey it's distinctive taste. When the moisture content of the honey is reduced to about 17%, the bees fill the small cells of the comb and seal them with a white beeswax capping. We can then remove the sealed combs from the beehives to use them on our table as comb honey or to have them extracted for use as liquid honey. You need not worry about eating the wax with the honey because beeswax is a completely wholesome product.
Raw honey contains small amounts of the same resins found in propolis. Propolis, sometimes called "bee glue," is actually a complex mixture of resins and other substances that honeybees use to seal the hive and make it safe from bacteria and other micro-organisms. Honeybees make propolis by combining plant resins with their own secretions.
In addition to gathering nectar to produce honey, honey bees perform a vital second function - pollination. About one-third of the human diet is derived from insect-pollinated plants, and honey bees are responsible for 80 percent of this pollination.
Pollination is the fertilization of a flowering plant. It occurs when pollen is transferred from the anthers of a flower to the ovules of that or another flower. Honey bees are responsible for pollinating a variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes and more.
In addition to its reputation as Nature's nutritive sweetener, research also indicates that honey's unique composition makes it useful as an antimicrobial agent and antioxidant.
In a study involving 105 children aged 2-18 years with upper respiratory tract infections of 7 days or less and night-time coughing, a single night-time dose of buckwheat honey was an effective alternative treatment for symptomatic relief of nocturnal cough and sleep difficulty, compared to a single dose of dextromethorphan (DM).
Researchers from the Penn State College of Medicine asked parents to give either honey, honey-flavored dextromethorphan (DM), or no treatment to the children. The first night, the children did not receive any treatment. The following night they received a single dose of buckwheat honey, honey-flavored DM, or no treatment 30 minutes before bedtime. The trial was partially blind as parents could not distinguish between the honey and the medication, although those administering no medication were obviously aware of the fact. Parents were asked to report on cough frequency and severity, how bothersome the cough was, and how well both adult and child slept, both 24 hours before and during the night of the dosage.
Significant symptom improvements were seen in the honey-supplemented children, compared with the no treatment group and DM-treated group, with honey consistently scoring the best and no-treatment scoring the worst. Based on parental "symptom points," children treated with honey improved an average of 10.71 points compared with 8.39 points for DM-treated children and 6.41 points for those who were not treated.
These results might be good news for parents of children two years and older, since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently recommended that children under six should not be given over-the-counter cough and cold medicines, due to potentially harmful side effects. However, it's important to note that this study did not attempt to test the potential benefits of buckwheat honey for children under two, and recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and other children's health organizations for a total avoidance of honey by children one year and younger still make good sense. (The AAP's major concern here is unnecessary risk of infantile botulism that might result from the presence of Clostridium botulinum bacteria in the honey).
An International Symposium Discusses Likely Benefits of Honey
Speakers at the First International Symposium on Honey and Human Health, held in Sacramento, CA, January 8, 2008, presented a number of research papers. (Fessenden R. Report to the Committee for the Promotion of Honey and Health) Findings include:
* Different varietals of honey possess a large amount of friendly bacteria (6 species of lactobacilli and 4 species of bifidobacteria), which may explain many of the "mysterious therapeutic properties of honey."
* Lactobacilli, which deliver protective and beneficial benefits to bees as well as humans, were not found in the bees' honey stomach during the winter months when the bees under investigation were fed sucrose, indicating that certain bee-feeding practices may have dangerous and unwanted effects on bees.
* Honey may promote better blood sugar control. Proper fueling of the liver is central to optimal glucose metabolism during sleep and exercise. Honey is the ideal liver fuel because it contains a nearly 1:1 ratio of fructose to glucose. Fructose "unlocks" the enzyme from the liver cell's nucleus that is necessary for the incorporation of glucose into glycogen (the form in which sugar is stored in the liver and muscle cells). An adequate glycogen store in the liver is essential to supply the brain with fuel when we are sleeping and during prolonged exercise. When glycogen stores are insufficient, the brain triggers the release of stress hormones - adrenalin and cortisol - in order to convert muscle protein into glucose. Repeated metabolic stress from cortisol produced when less than optimal liver glycogen stores are available during sleep, leads over time, to impaired glucose metabolism, insulin resistance, diabetes, and increased risk for cardiovascular disease and obesity.
* Experimental evidence indicates that consumption of honey may improve blood sugar control and insulin sensitivity compared to other sweeteners. The body's tolerance to honey is significantly better than to sucrose or glucose alone. Individuals with greater glucose intolerance (e.g., those with mild diabetes and Type 1 diabetes) showed significantly better tolerance to honey than sucrose. In addition, the antioxidants in honey, which have been shown to reduce oxidative stress, frequently by a larger factor than can be explained by their actual amount, may be beneficial for diabetics and help to improve endothelial function (the function of the cells that make up the lining of our blood vessels) and vascular health.
* In a year-long animal study comparing the effects of sucrose, honey and a low glycemic index (GI) sugar-free diet, rats on the honey-based diet showed: reduced weight gain and percentage of body fat, decreased anxiety, better spatial recognition memory, improved HDL cholesterol (15-20% higher than rats fed sugar or sucrose diets), improved blood sugar levels (HA1c), and reduced oxidative damage.
* Honey has been shown to be a more effective cough suppressant for children ages 2-18 than dextromethorphan (see "One Study Finds Buckwheat Honey To Be a Successful Cough Medicine" earlier in this Health Benefits section)
* Honey boosts immunity. Research conducted in several hospitals in Israel found honey effective in decreasing the incidence of acute febrile neutropenia (when high fever reduces white blood cell count) in 64% of patients. Honey also reduced the need for Colony Stimulating Factor (a compound produced in the cells lining the blood vessels that stimulate bone marrow to produce more white blood cells) in 60% of patients with acute febrile neutropenia; increased neutrophil count (another type of white blood cell), decreased thrombocytopenia (low platelet count), and stabilized hemoglobin levels at >11 gm/dl (a bit low but way better than full blown anemic).
* 32% of the cancer patients involved in the above immunity research reported improved quality of life.
A Spoonful a Day Keeps Free Radicals at Bay
Daily consumption of honey raises blood levels of protective antioxidant compounds in humans, according to research presented at the 227th meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, CA, March 28, 2004. Biochemist Heidrun Gross and colleagues from the University of California, Davis, gave 25 study participants each about four tablespoons buckwheat honey daily for 29 days in addition to their regular diets, and drew blood samples at given intervals following honey consumption. A direct link was found between the subjects' honey consumption and the level of polyphenolic antioxidants in their blood.
About the Honeybee
Honey bees are a subset of bees, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests out of wax. Honey bees are the only extant members of the tribe Apini, all in the genus Apis. Currently, there are only seven recognized species of honey bee with a total of 44 subspecies (Engel, 1999) though historically, anywhere from six to eleven species have been recognized. Honey bees represent only a small fraction of the approximately 20,000 known species of bees. Some other types of related bees produce and store honey, but only members of the genus Apis are true honey bees.
As in a few other types of eusocial bees, a colony generally contains one queen bee, a fertile female; seasonally up to a few thousand drone bees or fertile males; and a large seasonally variable population of sterile female worker bees. Details vary among the different species of honey bees, but common features include:
Eggs are laid singly in a cell in a wax honeycomb, produced and shaped by the worker bees. Larvae are initially fed with royal jelly produced by worker bees, later switching to honey and pollen. The exception is a larva fed solely on royal jelly, which will develop into a queen bee. The larva undergoes several moltings before spinning a cocoon within the cell, and pupating. Drones hatch from unfertilized eggs, females (Queens and worker bees) hatch from fertilized eggs. The queen actually can choose to fertilize the egg she is laying, usually depending on what cell she is laying in.
Young worker bees clean the hive and feed the larvae. When their royal jelly producing glands begin to atrophy, they begin building comb cells. They progress to other within-colony tasks as they become older, such as receiving nectar and pollen from foragers, and guarding the hive. Later still, a worker takes her first orientation flights and finally leaves the hive and typically spends the remainder of her life as a forager.
Worker bees cooperate to find food and use a pattern of "dancing" (known as the bee dance or waggle dance) to communicate information regarding resources with each other; this dance varies from species to species, but all living species of Apis exhibit some form of the behavior. If the resources are very close to the hive, they may also exhibit a less specific dance commonly known as the "Round Dance".
Honey bees also perform tremble dances which recruit receiver bees to collect nectar from returning foragers .
Virgin queens go on mating flights away from their home colony, and mate with multiple drones before returning. The drones die in the act of mating.
Colonies are established not by solitary queens, as in most bees, but by groups known as "swarms", which consist of a mated queen and a large contingent of worker bees. This group moves en masse to a nest site that has been scouted by worker bees beforehand. Once they arrive, they immediately construct a new wax comb and begin to raise new worker brood. This type of nest founding is not seen in any other living bee genus, though there are several groups of Vespid wasps which also found new nests via swarming (sometimes including multiple queens). Also, stingless bees will start new nests with large numbers of worker bees, but the nest is constructed before a queen is escorted to the site, and this worker force is not a true "swarm"
Information provided by The National Honey Board, Whole Foods, Wikipedia and The George Mateljan Foundation
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