Bee honey – the raw material for the production of mead

Honey is produced by bees from the nectar of plants or honeydew taken to the hive and processed with enriched substances from the glands of bees.

The finished product is then stored in honey comb cells.

Honeydew is a sap processed by aphids which is left on the leaves and stems of plants. The main components of honeydew are sugars which occur sometimes in very high concentrations.

Nectar is an aqueous solution of sugars (carbohydrates). Their concentration in the nectar is not uniform and it depends on nectar-secreting plant species, climatic conditions, time of day or year, and many other factors. Studies have  found that the percentage of sugars in nectar runs from 5 to 87%.

The first stage in the formation of nectar is the evaporation of water and transfer to the appropriate patch of cells, where chemical changes begin to occur. They occur mainly due to enzymes delivered with the saliva of worker bees. The main role of these enzymes is as an invertase, with sucrose decomposing into simple sugars (glucose and fructose) and diastase.

After reaching maturity the honey can be extracted from the hive in two ways:

Honey may have a smooth consistency (called Patoka) or more of a solid form (called krupiec), depending on the species and type of plants from which the honey was collected.

Honey can be distinguished the following ways:

 The main components of honey are:


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