That sweet elixir made by bees…

Honey, honey, honey, honey….honeeeyyy!

So how do bees make honey anyway?

As honey bees fly around to flowers doing the work of pollinating (a side benefit of the bees’ nectar collecting activities) they drink up the sweet nectar of all the flowers they visit – this can be over 1,000 flowers in one nectar gathering trip!

Once they have filled their bodies with as much nectar as they can hold, the bees return to the hive to off load that nectar to bees in the hive. These hive bees transfer the nectar to the honeycomb, fan the honeycomb to aid in the evaporation process, and wait for the optimum evaporation that concentrates the nectar. Then they seal the comb with beeswax! Tah-dah, honey!

This sweet elixir made by the bees is the delicious honey we can enjoy as a treat or even a treatment! We can eat the honey on food, in food, raw, whipped, in the comb, or also crystallized. Put it in tea to soothe a cough and it is thought to have medicinal properties and be anti-bacterial. Ah, nature!

Try our Honey-Orange Chicken Buddha Bowl recipe and get some of this sweetness!