by Dr. Carol Fassbinder-Orth and Ms. Amara Orth

Definition of honey:

hon·ey (noun: honey; plural noun: honeys): a sweet, sticky yellowish-brown fluid made by bees and other insects from nectar collected from flowers.(1)

what is in honey?

BASIC INFORMATION

Honey contains more than 180 different substances (El Sohaimy et al., 2015), including various sugars, water, acids, minerals, and other organic compounds. Honey usually has from a dark golden color to a light cream color depending on the floral source, and its color is quantified using the Pfund scale. Honey is an acidic substance, and generally has a pH between 3.2-6.1 (Codex Alimentations, 2001).

POLLEN

Honey bees collect pollen from the anthers of plants, and pollen is found in all unfiltered honey. Performing a pollen analysis (called an acetolysis) helps to determine the geographic source of the honey, and also what the specific floral source is. According to the American Beekeeping Federation, all honey must contain pollen in order to be considered real honey (Olmsted, 2016). Our honey contains over 1 million pollen grains per teaspoon of honey.

SUGARS

Honey is approximately 38% fructose, 30% glucose, and 10% more complex sugars.

WATER

Honey is usually between 15-19% water. Some floral sources have naturally lower (e.g. black locust tree) or higher (e.g. soybean) water levels in their nectar and resulting honey. If honey has too high of a moisture level, it is likely that in storage, fermentation will occur.  Honey has to have less than an 18.6% moisture level to be sold as US grade A honey.

PHYTOCHEMICALS

Honey contains minerals and plant-derived chemicals (phytochemicals) that have various effects, from making honey acidic (pH 3-6), to affecting the color and flavor of honey.

Does eating local honey help with allergies?

Bees do collect pollen from some seasonal allergy-inducing plants, and their pollen grains are detectable in honey. Eating honey to alleviate allergy symptoms is based on the concept of immunotherapy, and involves exposure to small doses of an allergen (e.g. weed pollen in honey) to help desensitize the immune system over time. More scientific research is needed to investigate the effectiveness of honey consumption for allergy relief. In theory, for the highest likelihood of success, one should consume honey from within a similar geographical region in which she/he lives (within a hundred or so miles), and consume honey collected during the season in which she/he has allergies to be exposed to specific allergy-inducing pollens.

Caution: Honey can induce allergic reactions in some individuals.

How can a beekeeper ensure that her/his bees produce the highest quality honey?

Location, Location, Location

Bees can’t survive off of the flowers planted from a single flower seed packet that you get from a box of cereal. Although it is well-intentioned, tiny edge gardens that all peak at a similar time in the summer are not sufficient to support honey bee colonies. Diverse habitats that offer floral forage from the early spring to the late fall are necessary. To accomplish the mission of providing optimal forage for our bees, we place our hives in the wildest areas of the Loess Hills of Iowa, and have converted acres of our farm to native prairies to help provide forage for our bees and native pollinators. We also have established forest stands that surround our beeyards that provide tree-based pollen and nectar at different times throughout the year. We harvest honey in small batches to be sure that we can isolate rare varietals. In 2019 we harvested black-eyed susan honey (confirmed through pollen analysis). This meant the world to us because we had spent so much time caring for our new prairies that were dense with the beautiful yellow flowers, in hopes that it would help our bees and other pollinators. The more informed a beekeeper is about what is blooming in the region around her/his bees and the flow patterns that bees have throughout the year, the more a beekeeper can decide if a given location is healthy for hives or not.

What makes our honey unique?

We analyze the pollen content of our honey to determine the floral source and provide our customers with enriched product knowledge. REAL honey has pollen and we believe you should know what is in the honey you buy! Depending on the year, we have up to six different varietals that we produce on our small honey bee farm. Varietal flavor, color, and pollen grain characteristics can be found below:

1:Primary Floral Source, 2: Microscopic image of a pollen grain, 3:Flavor profile, 4:Honey color representation

(1)Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, 2019. Oxford University Press.

(2)El Sohaimy, S.A., Masry, S.H.D., Shehata, M.G., 2015. Physicochemical characteristics of honey from different origins. Annals of Agricultural Science. (60): 279-287.

(3)Codex Alimentations, 2001. Draft revised standard for standard for honey (at step 10 of the Codex procedure). Alinorm 01 (25): 19–26.

(4)Olmstead, L. 2016. Real Food, Fake Food. Algonquin Books

Dr. Carol Fassbinder-Orth is the co-owner of Bountiful Blossoms Bee Company, and also an Associate Professor of Biology at Creighton University. Dr. Fassbinder-Orth specializes in the diseases of honey bees, and grew up on a commercial honey bee farm (Fassbinder Apiaries) in northeast Iowa. Her daughter, Amara, helped co-write this article as she also does research on honey bees. Amara came up with the idea of investigating honey contents, which has become an essential part of the family’s beekeeping decision-making processes.