From Bees to Jars: The Fascinating Journey of Honey!
Honey bees collect nectar, make honey & store as food. Fortunately they make more honey than the colony needs, so it is necessary to harvest the excess
Honey starts as flower nectar collected by bees, which gets broken down into simple sugars stored inside the honeycomb.
The design of the honeycomb and constant fanning of the bees wings causes evaporation, creating sweet liquid honey.
Honey's color and flavor vary based on the nectar collected by the bees. Therefore making every harvest unique!
On average, a hive will produce about 25 kilograms of surplus honey each year.
Beekeepers harvest it by collecting the honeycomb frames and scraping off the wax cap that bees make to seal off honey in each cell.
Once the caps are removed, the frames are placed in an extractor, a centrifuge that spins the frames, forcing honey out of the comb.
After honey is extracted, it is strained to remove remaining wax and other particles. Some beekeepers might heat the honey to make this process easier
After straining, the honey is transferred to a jar, and is transported to a grocery store or farmers' market, ready for consumption