How Different Flavors of Honey are Made

Honey is a very popular sweet golden byproduct of bees. It is said by the Mayo Clinic to have many health benefits and it’s a good sugar substitute, but a lot of people don’t know that there are different flavors! Honey is created when bees drink nectar from flowers and then store it in a part of their digestive tract called the honey stomach.

As most people know, bees collect nectar from flowers and store it in their hives to keep it as the main food source for their hive. Honey can last forever according to Tehrene Firman with Well and Good. In 2015, archaeologists found 3000-year-old honey stored in an Egyptian Tomb! And what is even better is that they probably could’ve eaten it and been fine! The thing that makes honey special is that it is acidic, which means it can prevent microorganisms from growing in it. It also has a very low moisture content which limits the number of bacteria able to grow in their honey, according to Kait Hanson with Allrecipes. So, technically, you could eat 3000-year-old honey!

The most common honey flavor is clover honey, made from the nectar of clover flowers. Some good honey flavors are orange blossom honey, blueberry honey, and dandelion honey. But how can bees create such a wide variety of honey?

Obviously, honey bees go from flower to flower to gather pollen and nectar, but the type of honey all depends on which ones they go to. Beekeepers may plant certain flowers nearby the hive to get different flavors of honey. Beekeepers also may make agreements with farmers to be able to place their hives next to the farmer’s crops. The farmer’s plants get pollinated, and we get the bee’s delicious honey!

So, the next time you go to buy honey, what flavor will you try?

Fun Bee Fact: The western honey bee can fly up to 20 miles per hour!