Raw honey is simply unadulterated honey, straight from the hive. Processed and/or blended honey has been altered from its original state. To best explain here are the most common ways honey makes it from the bee hive to your kitchen cabinet.
Raw filtered-
Capped frames
This is how we bottle our honey. We start with an actual box filled with frames that are filled with honey. The box, called a honey super is one of several stacked on top of each
other to create the hive. The bottom box of a Langstroth hive is for brood, aka baby bees. Each box has frames, those long rectangular pieces covered in little octagon cells. Inside each of these the worker bees (all female) with either create cells for the queen to lay eggs in or cells to store honey. Our hives are designed to keep baby bees in a separate box from honey.
Once the honey super is removed and inside we
carefully cut the honey cap that covers the honey. The frames are then put into a spinner where the honey is spun out much like your washer removes water from your clothes during the spin cycle. After this the honey goes into a food grade five gallon bucket with a food grade net to remove any little bits of wax or other frame particulates. Once the honey is below 18.5% moisture content, its ready to bottle!
Pasteurized-
Pasteurization is a process of heating food to 140*f. A primary reason most honey gets pasteurized is to make large scale bottling faster and easier, creates a clearer color of honey and can lengthen shelf life. Warm honey flows quickly, room temperature honey flows fairly slowly. Honey has natural probiotics, pollen, vitamins, minerals, propolis, enzymes, amino acids and antioxidants- heating honey can remove these benefits. Honey can contain botulism spores which pose no harm to people older than one years old which is why honey should never be given to a baby. Pasteurization doesn’t kill botulism so the no honey for babies rule applies to all honey.
Honey, believe it or not also has a black market. Honey from many Asian regions has been found to be contaminated with antibiotics (used to treat some bee diseases) and lead. Although this honey is banned here in the United States and the EU, a large black market industry has found ways to sneak it into the United States. By pasteurizing illegal honey, the pollen is removed making it nearly impossible to determine where it came from. Honey from our little farm will have some Locust Tree pollen, a tree found on our property and in our area. If we were to sell it in Arizona, someone could test the honey, find the Locust pollen and be able to determine what region our bees live in.
Blended-
Most blended honey is also pasteurized with the addition of sugars such as rice or corn syrup. Adding sugars changes the flavor, color and shelf life of honey. It also can increase profits for the honey company as some sugars are an extremely inexpensive filler.
Summer honey in center
Raw honey is honey. Our bees make it from the pollen and nectar they find near their hives. In the spring it is light in color and very sweet. In the summer it is dark in color and bolder in flavor. Every year, every season, it is a little different because the available pollen and nectar is a little different. Either way honey is natures liquid gold, and we are certainly thankful our little bee’s keep sharing!
Audrey L Elder Fourteen Acre Wood
Comments