Is Honey Made from Bee Vomit?
Once we’ve taken you through the journey of how honey is made, you’ll likely agree that honey isn’t bee vomit. Honey is placed in the hive cells directly from the bee’s mouth, which causes the assumption that honey is the equivalent of vomit.
However, does it come from the stomach too? What are the processes involved to rule out the relation between honey and vomit? Let’s find out.
Inside a Honey Bee
Honey starts as a liquid solution called nectar, which is sucked up by honeybees as they go from flower to flower.
The nectar is pumped through the proboscis — the tongue — into a crop that is expandable. This crop is also known as the “honey stomach.” It’s in this crop that the honey-making process begins in the crop with the aid of salivary enzymes.
In the human body, the equivalent enzyme is in the saliva — alpha-amylase — which catalyzes the conversion of starch to maltose and dextrins.
Honeybees have this same enzyme as well as an additional one — glucose oxidase. This acts as a catalyst and converts glucose into hydrogen peroxide and gluconolactone. Hydrogen peroxide is especially important since it prevents microbial growth in the pre-honey solution at this stage.
What Happens in the Crop?
- Proventriculus: While the nectar is in the crop, the proventriculus — a pulsating valve — extends and filters out unwanted particles from the nectar. These particles can be moderate-to-small in size and are mainly pollen grains or infectious spores of intestinal parasites.
- Bolus: Once the bee has accumulated a certain number of particles, they’re swallowed into the midgut as a bolus.
- Peritrophic membrane: As the bolus leaves the proventriculus, it passes through a peritrophic membrane. Once the bolus has passed through this membrane, it’s impossible for it to go back through to the honey stomach.
- Dehydration: This is a time-consuming stage for the creation of honey. Here, the bolus is dehydrated and reduced to a fermentation-inhibiting 20 percent or lower moisture content.
- Regurgitation: To accomplish the dehydration, the now particle-free nectar is regurgitated out of the crop and suspended as a thin film, directly beneath the horizontally extended mouthparts.
- Beating wings: The bee will then begin the process of water evaporation, which is hastened by beating their wings.
- Back to the crop: After the film gets thicker, it’s pumped into the crop again, to get blended with the rest of the nectar.
- Comb cells: When it reaches the perfect moisture point, the honey is pumped into the comb cells and covered with beeswax.
Confirmation That Honey Isn’t Bee Vomit
After the food passes through the esophagus of a honeybee, it’s stored in the honey stomach. During this time, the bee is flying back to the hive.
Once the nectar goes through the proventriculus membrane, it simply can’t go back. Everything that passes through this valve moves on into the midgut, where it’s digested.
If you think about the equivalent process in humans, there’s a similarity. We use enzymes to break down our food, which passes into the digestive system, including the stomach. When we vomit, the contents go back in the same direction.
The difference here is that the processed nectar and bolus do not return the same way. The digested “food” can’t go back to the crop, which is why honey can’t be classed as vomit. The nectar that’s used to make honey only entered the crop, rather than where digestion takes place.
Further Biological Processes as Evidence
The nectar and pollen that pass through the proventriculus are digested by enzymes. These enzymes are secreted by the cells aligned with the ventriculus, which connects to the ileum — the bee’s equivalent to our small intestine. At that point, about 100 Malpighian tubules connect to the digestive tract.
The Malpighian tubules filter the waste products from the bee’s equivalent of blood. The waste — similar to urine — is discharged into the ileum. The liquid waste then joins the solid waste.
After removing the nutrients from the digested food, the ileum moves the waste along the digestive tract. Both the ventriculus and the Malpighian tubules’ waste products will go into the rectum, where it’s stored until the honey bee can defecate through the anus.
As you can see, the bee has a clearly defined process to produce honey, which is completely separate for processing waste products. As such, these defined biological processes are too different to claim that honey bee is vomit.
Conclusion
People around the world have different opinions about honey being vomit or not, but in the end, it’s all about the way you look at the digestive system of the honey bee. Honeybees have two stomachs; one for digesting food and the other to store the nectar.
Connected by a one-way valve, everything that goes to the digestive stomach can’t return. Since “vomit” is ejected matter from the stomach towards the mouth, we conclude that honey isn’t bee vomit.
How Long Does Honey Last?
The exceptional quality of honey, in that it doesn’t have an expiry date, makes it indispensable in every household. Who doesn’t use honey when baking or even when having a sore throat or a skin rash to treat?
The question is — does honey really last forever, and why? Can it ever go bad? The simple answer is, “No.” But, why doesn’t it degrade in time? Let’s take a look.
From Plant Nectar to Honey
It all starts with bees collecting nectar from plants and storing it inside their honey stomach. This is not their normal stomach, but a special compartment called honeycomb. It contains various enzymes coming from the bees’ glands. These enzymes have a very important role in honey production, even after the bees deliver the nectar into their hives.
Nectar from the flowers consists mainly of sugar but also contains traces of amino acids, proteins and lipids. They’re all mixed in a water solution. Sugar is the most dominant ingredient, and it’s present mostly in the form of sucrose.
Besides sugar, water is the second main component of nectar and, later on, honey. The low water content in honey is the key to its durability. For enough water to evaporate, bees need first to transform the sugar structure of the sweet solution.
Bees Work Hard to Decompose the Sugar
The role of bees’ enzymes is to break down the sucrose into simpler molecules. Sucrose is a disaccharide and consists of two different monosaccharides – glucose and fructose. In sucrose, molecules of glucose and fructose are interlinked. Enzymes break these molecules down into a mixture, where glucose and fructose react with water separately and differently.
All this is done during the bees’ flight back to the hive. There, the other bees take over. They repeat the process for the majority of sucrose to get broken down into glucose and fructose. In the end, only a small amount of sucrose (1–5 percent) stays present in honey.
It’s only then that fructose can dissolve in the water, while glucose starts forming crystals. The bees’ next job is to minimize the content of water in the rest of the liquid solution.
Less Water, More Longevity
The nectar is stored in the honeycomb and contains up to 70 percent water at first. After bees are done with the sugar breakdown, they need to minimize the content of water in the nectar. A low amount of water is what makes honey so stable and durable.
Bees in the hive encourage the evaporation of water by fanning the honeycomb with their wings. During this process, the water content will drop from 70 percent to a maximum of 20 percent.
An environment with this low amount of moisture doesn’t support bacteria development. Instead, it dehydrates them. This means honey’s key for resisting spoiling is its low water activity.
Honey’s Low Water Activity
We measure water activity on a scale of 0 to 1. Most bacteria need an environment with a water activity of 0.75 and more to survive and develop. However, honey water activity on this scale is 0.6 or even lower. This doesn’t make honey bacteria friendly, and therefore it’s resistant to spoiling.
Too Much Water Leads to Fermentation
For its durability to last, honey must be stored properly. Its containers or jars should be well-sealed. If not, honey can absorb too much moisture from the air. The chances aren’t high of this occurring, but this can lead to honey fermentation. You can recognize fermented honey mostly by its bad smell.Fermentation is caused by sugar-tolerant yeast, if the environment has enough moisture. This can happen even after the amount of water in the solution drops to 20 percent or less. In rare cases, it can occur after the crystallization of honey.
How Is Fermentation Prevented?
Commercial honey is usually pasteurized or creamed. Pasteurization means heating the honey to at least 150 degrees Fahrenheit for half an hour and then cooling it off rapidly. During this process, yeast spores are destroyed. There is no guarantee pasteurized honey won’t start to crystallize again, though.
Creaming the honey with a method called the Dyce process is another solution. It speeds up the crystallization at a low temperature, which makes honey thicker, but smooth afterward. Honey still has its crystal structure, but it’s so delicate, you can’t really spot it with your naked eye.
Creamy honey seems to be more stable, but only at room temperature. If the temperature is higher, honey may become unstable. Its texture will become partly hard and partly liquid – and therefore dangerous for the yeast to develop again.
Can Crystallization Make the Honey Go Bad?
Crystallization of honey is a natural, self-regulating process and it doesn’t affect honey’s quality. However, after crystallization, one or more layers of extremely liquid honey can appear next to the crystallized part.
For honey to last unlimitedly, it needs to keep its water levels below 17 percent. If the liquid part of honey contains more than 17 percent of water, the solution becomes yeast friendly. It may cause the existing spores of yeast to grow, and that leads to honey fermentation.
One way to prevent this is by slowing down the crystallization process. You can purchase honey, which has already been processed and isn’t in its raw, crystallizing state anymore. Moreover, you can also control honey’s crystallization at home.
How Can You Decrystallize Honey?
At regular room temperature — between 50 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit — honey has the most ideal conditions for crystallization. If needed, you can regulate honey’s crystallization in several ways.
If you want it to crystallize slower, store your honey higher than room temperature — greater than 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cooler temperatures — below 50 degrees Fahrenheit — speed up the crystallization process, so putting honey in the fridge might not be wise if you’re trying to decrystallize it.
If you want to get just a small amount of honey into a liquid state again, use a warm water bath. Put a certain amount of honey in a small jar bathing in warm water for no more than 15 minutes. Alternatively, you can always microwave the honey.
Though crystallization occurs, it’s not very likely your honey will go bad. The most important thing is to keep it well-sealed and at a proper temperature. This way, it should last indefinitely. It’ll also keep all its beneficial enzymes that are destroyed during overheating (pasteurization).
What Else Helps Honey to Last Forever?
Any water solution has a certain pH value, which can be more acidic (pH value below 7) or alkaline (pH value above 7). While pure water has a neutral pH of around 7, honey’s pH is around 4 and makes honey more acidic. However, most of the bacteria can only survive in an environment with a more neutral pH.
No Expiry Date Needed?
Food products are usually labeled with expiration dates. However, honey — if stored well — should remain edible indefinitely. Beekeepers will rarely put an expiration date stamp on their jars. It may not last forever, but it’ll stay edible for as long as you have it. Its structure and color may change over time due to crystallization, but that doesn’t mean the honey has gone bad. Rather, it can provide us with an idea of how long that jar of honey has been resting on the shelves.
The truth is, there’s very little chance for the processed honey to go bad in time. Stored well, it shouldn’t contain enough water or moisture for the yeast to thrive there. The same goes for raw honey with a clear crystal structure.
What Causes Honey to Crystallize?
Honey crystallization is a natural process that occurs with all types of honey. It only changes the structure and color of honey but doesn't affect its quality in a bad way. On the contrary, crystallization makes honey more stable and keeps its nutritional value intact. Bees are the ones that make this happen.
As crystallized honey is harder to use in the kitchen, honey suppliers developed different ways to offer honey in a smoother or even liquid state. Nevertheless, processed honey can never maintain the quality of raw honey from the hives.
What Is Honey Made Of?
Bees fly out to the fields and collect nectar from flowering plants. They store it in their stomach called honey crop and return to the hive. There it will take them around half an hour to process the nectar.
Bees absorb the excess water from the nectar and break down the sugar molecules into smaller ones. This is done with the help of a special enzyme. Afterward, honey is left in the hive to be dehydrated and decomposed by the enzymes already present in the solution.
Research has shown that honey consists of at least 80 percent sugars and less than 20 percent water. Besides this, around 300 other substances are present in the mixture. Honey contains protein, different amino acids, enzymes, vitamins and minerals.
What Happens Before the Crystallization?
Granulation or crystallization is a natural process of any raw honey. Since honey consists mostly of carbohydrates and low content of water, this makes it a highly concentrated sugar solution.
A natural reaction here is to seek balance, but water can’t dissolve the surplus of sugar naturally. Therefore, a part of sugar needs to separate itself from the liquid and crystallize. This will leave the rest of the solution in balance. For it to happen, bees need to do their job.
When nectar is brought to the hive, it consists of regular sugar (sucrose) and water. Bees need to first transform sucrose into invert sugar, which means the separation of two monosaccharides present in the sugar — glucose and fructose.
Sucrose vs. Invert Sugar
It’s the special enzyme — invertase — coming from bees’ glands that is constantly transforming sucrose to invert sugar. This means transforming the interlinked molecules of glucose and fructose into a mixture of both.
The process is quite demanding and time-consuming for the bees. Firstly, they consume regular sugar. Then, they process it and transform it to invert sugar with the help of invertase. Bees need to produce enough of the enzyme for this to happen. In the end, invert sugar as a sticky and moisture-absorbing emulsion represents up to 80 percent of honey.
The decomposition of regular sugar is a long-term process that continues even after the honey is taken from the hive and stored elsewhere. Nevertheless, a certain percentage of sucrose — between 1 and 5 percent — always stays present in honey.
It’s the Glucose That Crystallizes
Now that glucose and fructose are separated, crystallization occurs. The part of sugar that crystallizes is glucose. The other part, which dissolves in water naturally and remains in a liquid state, is fructose.
Honey contains approximately 26–43 percent glucose and 18–27 percent fructose. Crystallization of honey depends on the balance between these two monosaccharides.
How Fast Does Honey Crystallize?
Most honey doesn’t come from one single source, though. It’s impossible to predict its composition and crystallization in detail. Crystallization can happen in a few months, but can also take up to two years and more. It all depends on the percentage of glucose in honey.
Honey that contains more glucose will crystallize rapidly — in a few days to a few weeks. Aster, clover and dandelion honey fall into this group. Probably the most known honey, acacia, contains a higher level of fructose and crystallizes slowly. Some other types, such as eucalyptus, leatherwood and tupelo honey, are similar. They may stay liquid for years.
Honey may granulate almost completely and very fast. In this case, the crystals will be smaller in size, and the structure of honey more refined. No matter the size of the crystals, granulated honey is lighter in color than liquid or “runny” honey.
Why Do Beekeepers Decrystallize Honey?
The hive temperature is usually 32 degrees Celsius and more. In these conditions, the sugar and water are in a stable state called homeostasis. Afterward, when honey is collected from the hive, it’s stored in a cooler environment with room temperature. This is still pretty stable, but different enough for glucose to start extracting itself from the rest of the solution. That’s when the first crystals start to form.
In terms of quality, there’s no good reason to decrystallize honey. But, even huge quantities of honey can crystallize, and this becomes a problem for beekeepers. To get honey out of their storage containers, they need to break its crystal structure and liquify it.
There are special bucket heaters available on the market, which warm the honey inside the containers slowly. The temperature changes just to the point when honey gets softer and, therefore, is easier to collect. This solution is especially convenient for everyone trying to store the honey in its raw form for as long as possible.
How Do Honey Suppliers Decrystallize Honey?
Crystallization preserves all the nutritional and healing qualities of honey. Therefore, liquid honey that usually sells best may not be the most natural and healthy honey to buy.
It seems like most of the people prefer purchasing liquid honey, though. Commercial honey is, therefore, most often in a liquid state. Suppliers keep it this way by heating or creaming it.
Pasteurization of Honey
Pasteurization (heating) of honey dissolves the crystals. It also destroys the microorganisms that can cause the honey to go bad. Moreover, heat processing reduces the moisture content to a level that keeps honey from fermenting.
Afterward, the honey is filtered. Filtration removes air bubbles and remaining hard particles (wax and pollen) from the liquid solution.
Creaming of Honey
Creaming is another way to prevent the honey from crystallizing completely. The point of creaming is to speed up the crystallization at a low temperature, resulting in a thick, but smooth, honey texture. After the creaming crystals are so tiny, you can’t even detect them with your naked eye.
A creamy or “cloudy” type of honey is very common on the market. However, if stored at high temperatures, it can become unstable. Its color will change, and the texture will become partly hard, partly liquid again.
How Can You Decrystallize Honey?
Temperatures ideal for crystallization are between 10 and 20 degrees Celsius. If you want your honey to crystallize slower, put your honey jars in a place with a temperature above 20 degrees Celsius. Cooler temperatures, below 10 degrees Celsius, also delay the crystallization process.
When stored properly, in a well-sealed jar or container, honey can’t turn bad. If the jar isn’t sealed properly, honey can absorb too much moisture from the air. This will lead to honey fermentation — you’ll know the honey’s gone bad by its smell.
Therefore, the crystallization of honey can never be a sign of poor quality. It can make the honey more difficult to scoop from the jar, though. In this case, you can make it softer or a liquid, with a few simple methods:
- Water bath.
- Microwave.
- Warming cabinet.
Water bath
Heat the water to between 35 and 40 degrees Celsius, and leave the glass jar bathing for no more than 10–15 minutes. Overheating the honey could destroy its enzymes and other ingredients, which make it antibacterial and antiseptic. If possible, don’t warm up the whole jar of honey, but just the quantity you need at that moment.
Microwave
Another way to make honey softer is to microwave it. You can do this in short intervals of 30 seconds on a medium temperature up to 5 degrees Celsius. Don’t forget to leave the jar uncovered, and stir in between sessions.
Warming Cabinet
If you have an option to use a food warming cabinet, you can decrystallize your honey just like the beekeepers do. Put your honey in a glass jar uncovered and enclose it in the cabinet for 12–48 hours. The temperature shouldn’t be set higher than 40 degrees Celsius.
Crystals Equal Quality
Raw honey may be less attractive for some and not always easy to scoop out of the jar. Nevertheless, the crystallization of honey is a natural process of raw honey seeking balance and stability.
Until honey is collected by the beekeepers, bees secrete a special enzyme to take care of this balance. Once the honey is out of its natural environment — the hive — and kept at a different temperature, it starts to self-preserve through crystallization.
Decrystallization based on heat processing keeps honey in a liquid state. However, overheating and filtration of honey lowers its nutritional value. Keep this in mind when having a cup of hot tea with honey. Let the tea cool off a bit first and add a scoop of raw honey later. Your body will be grateful for it.