Adventist Adventurer Awards and Answers/Honey

Honey
Builder

Where does honey come from?

A Honey Bee on calyx

Honeycomb

A variety of honey flavors and container sizes and styles from the 2008 Texas State Fair

It comes from the hard work of bees, foraging bees suck nectar from flowers, swallow it and store it in a honey crop, a special type of stomach which comes before the actual digestive system stomach. This nectar does not enter the bee's digestive system. As the bees swallow the nectar they add enzymes from glands opening into the mouth.

How does the bee make honey?

When the forager bee returns to the hive she (they are all female) regurgitates the nectar and passes it to one of the hive bees who adds more enzymes. The nectar may be passed from bee to bee in this way several times before it is finally deposited into a cell on the honeycomb. The enzymes added by the bees are important in converting the nectar into honey. They break down the complex sugars in the nectar into simple sugars—for example, sucrose is broken down into glucose and fructose. They also produce compounds which give honey its anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. When the nectar is first stored it contains up to 90 percent water. With this amount of water it wouldn't store for long without fermenting, so the bees fan the cells with their wings. This air movement, together with the heat in the hive, evaporates the water. When the water content is down to about 16 percent the bees consider the honey ready and seal the cells with caps of wax.

Understand the terms: super, extractor, nectar, pollen.

Super Place where honey is stored

A honey extractor is a mechanical device used in the honey extraction. A honey extractor extracts the honey from the honey comb without destroying the comb. Extractors work by centrifugal force. A drum or container holds a frame basket which spins, flinging the honey out. With this method the wax comb stays intact within the frame and can be reused by the bees.

Nectar is a sugar-rich liquid produced by plants. Common nectar-consuming pollinators include bees, butterflies and moths, hummingbirds and bats. Nectar is the sugar source for honey. Nectar secretion increases as the flower is visited by pollinators. After pollination, the nectar is frequently reabsorbed into the plant

Pollen is a fine powder produced by certain plants when they reproduce. During the spring, summer, and fall seasons, it's released into the air and picked up by the wind, which brings it to other plants to fertilize them.

What is the role of the beekeeper?

A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees. Honey bees produce commodities such as honey, beeswax, pollen, and royal jelly. Beekeepers also use honeybees to provide pollination services to fruit and vegetable growers; raise queens and bees to sell to other farmers, and to satisfy scientific curiosity. Many people keep bees as a hobby. Others do it for income, either as a sideline to other work, or as a commercial operator—depending mostly on the number of colonies they maintain.

Make two crafts from the following list

• Bee hive - Shape Book
• Honey comb - Egg Carton Honeycomb
• Bee - Bee Candy Plate and Foam Bee Pin
• Flower -Chenille Flowers
• Your choice - Bee Lapbook

Taste three flavors (types) of honey. Discover which you like best. Why?

Honey is classified by its floral source. There are also regional honeys. Honey is also graded on its color and optical density by USDA standards, graded on a scale called the Pfund scale, which ranges from 0 for "water white" honey to more than 114 for "dark amber" honey.

Floral source Generally, honey is classified by the floral source of the nectar from which it was made. Honeys can be from specific types of flower nectars or can be blended after collection. The pollen in honey is traceable to floral source and therefor region of origin.

Blended Most commercially available honey is blended, meaning it is a mixture of two or more honeys differing in floral source, color, flavor, density or geographic origin.

Polyfloral Polyfloral honey, also known as wildflower honey, is derived from the nectar of many types of flowers. The taste may vary from year to year, and the aroma and the flavor can be more or less intense, depending on which bloomings are prevalent.

Monofloral Monofloral honey is made primarily from the nectar of one type of flower. Different monofloral honeys have a distinctive flavor and color because of differences between their principal nectar sources. To produce monofloral honey, beekeepers keep beehives in an area where the bees have access to only one type of flower.

Honeydew honey Instead of taking nectar, bees can take honeydew, the sweet secretions of aphids or other plant sap-sucking insects. Honeydew honey is very dark brown in color, with a rich fragrance of stewed fruit or fig jam, and is not as sweet as nectar honeys.

Memorize two of the following Bible verses

Exodus 3:8 (NIV)
So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey —the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

Psalms 19:7-10 (NIV)

The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.

Psalms 34:8 (NIV)
Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

Proverbs 24:13 (NIV)
Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste.

Proverbs 25:16 (NIV)
If you find honey, eat just enough—too much of it, and you will vomit.

Matthew 3:4 (NIV)
John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.

Your choice (NIV)

Gallery of honey harvesting

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  Modern beehives
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  Smoking the hive
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  Using a blower to remove bees from honey prior to removal to honey house
• 
  A beekeeper removing frames from the hive
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  A capped honey super frame
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  Opening the cells: Uncapping
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  An uncapping fork
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  Uncapping the cells by hand using an uncapping knife
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  Extracting the honey
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  Filtering the honey
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  Pouring in pots
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  View Honey Al Jabal Alkhdar near the city of Bayda, Libya

External Resources

Honey - U.S. Honey Board

Bee Lapbook and Crafts = Danielle's Place

NIV Bible - Bible Gate Way

Adventurer Manual - KFW Adventurers