This is the most frequently asked question of all beekeepers!

Here is then, some of the answer, without the hard words.

Some flowers produce nectar, which seems to have no other function than to
attract insects, which accidentally collect pollen on their body hairs. When
the insects go to other flowers they accidentally transfer the pollen to
that flower's receptive organ, the pollen fertilises the ova to make seeds.

Other flowers, mainly grasses and some trees, don't make nectar, they rely
on the wind to blow their very light pollen to receptive female flowers.
These are the pollens which cause hay fever. The pollen grains are very
small and light. Insect pollinated plant pollen grains are large and
slightly sticky and don't fly in the wind.

In this case we're talking about honeybees, not just any old insect,
although some other insects can play a part in pollination. Honey bees will
also collect just pollen deliberately, take it back to the nest where it is
stored ready to be fed to the larvae, who are growing so quickly that they
need the protein of which the pollen is formed.

Honey bees also collect and store nectar. That's the carbohydrate - energy -
food for adult bees (a little is also fed to larvae but they need protein
more). They store it in large amounts while ever the weather is warm enough
to allow flowers to produce nectar. When the weather is cold or it's
raining and the bees can't fly or if it's so hot and dry that the flowers
don't produce nectar the bees have stored reserves to live on.

Other insects collect different types of carbohydrate and protein and don't
store either for any length of time. Honeybee stores, if they're not used,
can last for years, so one generation of bees (the workers live on average
about six weeks) are storing food for future generations. In that way they'
re capitalists. In other ways they're socialists but that's a different
matter. Honeybees are unique in this way of life.

Honeybees will collect honey while nectar is being produced and they usually
collect more than they need to see them through hard times, it's this
surplus which the beekeeper takes. If the bees don't collect enough nectar
for their needs the beekeeper will feed them sugar syrup so that they don't
starve.

All nectar comprises sugar (about 20%) and water (about 80%). The sugars are
different kinds. There are other elements of nectar, which differ between
plant types; this is why different floral sources of honey produce different
colours and flavours. Ling heather honey has about 3% of protein in it which
makes it thixotropic, uniquely to northern European honeys, but manuka honey
from the Antipodes has a similar property.

This is all relevant, promise.

At 80% water, nectar will ferment. The honeybee worker 'sucks' up the nectar
with her tongue, it's more of a pumping action. The tongue is in five parts,
which move against each other to transfer the nectar to a simple internal
organ, which stores the nectar until she returns to the nest. Once there she
dumps the nectar into a cell in the comb. That can be any cell, as long as
it doesn't contain pollen or brood.

Another bee comes along and 'sucks' up some of the nectar and spreads the
parts of her tongue to form a film of nectar. A bit like making bubbles in
the bath. At the same time other bees are standing around the hive and
especially near the entrance, fanning their wings. In this way warm,
moisture-laden air - the moisture has evaporated from the exposed nectar -
is expelled from the hive and cool, drier air is drawn in.

This process of taking out the nectar, exposing it to the air and putting it
back in cells continues until by some unknown process the bees are satisfied
that its moisture content has been reduced to about 20% of the original
nectar. We call that honey. The cells with the evaporated high sugar
concentrated contents are sealed with a cap of beeswax (another fascinating
subject, don't get me started) so that it's waterproof. Honey is
hygroscopic, if it is left open to the air it will eventually absorb water
and ferment. With its sealing cap of wax it's impervious to moisture unless
it's damaged. The bees will chomp through the capping when they need the
honey.

Back to the different sugar components in nectar - now honey. They are
complex but are, simply, glucose and sucrose, dextrose and laevulose. If the
proportion of dextrose is more than that of laevulose, which is normal in
most honeys, the honey will granulate. The exception is acacia honey, true
acacia honey, with no contamination from other honeys, will stay clear all
the time.

Some honeys have very large percentages of dextrose, they granulate very
quickly. Oilseed rape honey will granulate in the comb in the hive in a
matter of days. It's very important for the beekeeper to extract those combs
as soon as the cells are sealed if s/he wants to be able to extract the
liquid honey easily.

Such honeys grow crystals very quickly. Because they grow quickly they are
tiny - the next-door crystals are growing quickly too and there's no room
for them to grow large. The result is a very smooth honey.

Honeys with a lower proportion of dextrose grow crystals more slowly, those
with the lowest amount of dextrose grow so very slowly that there's time for
the crystals to grow very large - like gravel in some cases.

Most honeys need foci to start crystals growing, these can be tiny air
bubbles, microscopic bits of dust or other particles or other crystals which
are introduced by the beekeeper. This last is called 'seeding'. Ideally an
amount of very finely granulated honey - such as oil seed rape honey which
although set and probably very hard is also very smooth, like butter - is
introduced into the honey to be granulated or 'set'. It is stirred in until
finely distributed and then left. The crystals which grow will take on the
character of the seed, that is they will be very small and produce a soft
set, smooth honey. That's the ideal.

If the beekeeper doesn't have any such seeding material and wants to have
some controlled set honey s/he can agitate the newly extracted honey. This
isn't done, as someone once suggested, by jumping out at a jar and making a
face at it but by physically moving the honey. There are various ways but a
few years ago an innovative chap developed a large spiral screw, a bit like
the best corkscrews, with a long stem which fitted into a drill chuck. This
is where I came in on the ng. A low speed turning of the screw in a tank of
honey would start granulation in about ten minutes in about 60 lbs of run
honey. The honey would then be run off, while still soft enough into
plastic, lidded storage buckets or jars.

This process explains why 'run' honey bought in jars or squeezy plastic
bears granulates after being used a few times. The frequent insertion of a
knife or spoon into a jar, or the squeezing of the soft bottle, means that
the contained honey is agitated and eventually will granulate.


Any granulated honey can be restored to run honey by warming the jar gently
in a pan of hot water to re-dissolve the crystals. Conversely, to prevent
granulation in stored honey it can be put in the deep freeze, this slows
down the growth of crystals.

If the beekeeper is tardy in extracting the honey from the comb for any
reason s/he has to melt the whole lot in a warm oven in a suitable container
until it's all liquid, let the lot cool and lift off the cake of wax from
the top.

The business of extracting honey hasn't changed except in detail for about
150 years, since the movable frame hive (the 'modern' wooden box) was
developed. Before that time comb had to be cut from the insides of hives
made from various materials, broken and filtered through fine cloth.

Now the sealed honeycomb is built by the bees in wooden frames which hang in
the hive and can be removed. The 'cappings' are removed with a knife and
saved to be melted and filtered. The honey-dripping frames are dropped
vertically into the purpose-built slots inside a drum. The slots are
attached to a central pivot which, when turned by a hand or electrically
powered cranked and usually geared device, throws out drops of honey
towards the internal walls of the drum. They collect at the bottom and are
drawn off from time to time by a 'honey gate' - a sort of tap - on the
outside.

By the way, the bees are encouraged to build comb in the frames by the
beekeeper, who fits a sheet of embossed beeswax into the wooden frame.
S/he does this not because the bees need it, they've been building perfect
comb for 300,000,000 years without our help (Man has been around for about
500,000 years) but so that we can move combs around within and between
hives. We want to be in control of insects!

Now I'm sure that I've forgotten some things and that others haven't been
explained well enough. If you have any questions about this or any other
aspect of honeybees, honey or wax, please say so.

Mary