Honey is a natural sweetener that is both nutritious and tasty. When you pull out a jar of bee honey, it’s incredible to think of the journey that brought it to your table. Understand the process during which honey bees create this sweet treat and how beekeepers prepare it for you to enjoy.

A Guide to the Bee Honey Production Process

The Bees

There are about seven species of bees that create honey. During the spring and summer when flowers are in bloom, the worker bees extract the nectar from flowers. They store this nectar in a sac called a honey stomach, along with a little bit of saliva. They travel up to five miles away from their hive to find the nectar and will visit an average of 100 flowers during each trip.

Once they return to the hive, the worker bees pass the nectar to the house bees. The bees chew the nectar as they pass it to each other, changing the chemical properties with enzymes. The house bees spread out the mixture over the honeycomb to dry out the honey since it needs a lower moisture content to store long-term.

Once it’s dry, they push the honey into the honeycomb to store it until the bees are ready to eat it. Each cell in the comb is capped with beeswax to keep it fresh.

The Extraction

Each hive produces about 65 extra pounds of honey each year, so the beekeepers harvest it. They pull out the honeycomb frames and scrape off the beeswax cap, then place the frames inside an extractor. The extractor spins quickly to remove the honey. For raw, unfiltered honey, nothing is added or removed before it’s put into the bottle for you. It’s purely fresh bee honey.

Rosie Honey brings raw organic honey to the people of Orlando, FL. Their products are unfiltered and as pure as you can find—fresh from the hive. Use it to sweeten your tea, prepare some toast, or to naturally sweeten your cooking. Visit their website to shop their honey products!