Honeybees spend their entire life pollinating flowers and making honey. Bees use pollen that they gather from flowers to create honey that the bees use to feed themselves. Beekeepers are responsible for removing the honey from the hive and using it for human consumption.
After the beekeeper has collected it from the hive, removed the wax caps that the bees use to seal the honey in the honeycomb, and extracted it from the honeycomb it's time to process the honey.
Not all beekeepers choose to process their honey. Unprocessed, it is marketed with words like raw, areanic, unfiltered, and natural printed on the label. These are just different ways of saying unprocessed. Beekeepers that choose to process their honey should have it done as quickly after extracting it as possible. The act of processing it is making sure that the honey is heated and filtered. Processing is a sticky and hot process and it is important that you are patient and diligent whilst doing it. The area where the processing is taking place should be kept clean and free of insects. Before you start processing the honey crop make sure that all your equipment is dry. Honey absorbs water and if it has too much water, it will ferment.
Experienced beekeepers can look at a vat of honey and tell you what type of flower the worker bees were attracted to when they were gathering pollen. They can do this by looking at it's color. The type of flower the bees collected pollen from also affects the honey's flavor. Other factors like soil quality and honeycomb quality can change the flavor of the honey. Normally the lighter colored honey has a milder flavor than darker colored honey. There are approximately three hundred different varieties of honey produced in the United States.
The plugs that bees use to seal honey into the honeycombs can be used to make bee's wax candles. For the health conscious, honey is a great substitute for white sugar.
Honey that is still in the honeycomb has a more natural flavor then honey that has been extracted. Extracted honey works best for flavoring teas and cooking.
Fans of natural healing have always been big fans of honey for medicinal purposes. It is believed that honey is an excellent way to soothe sore throats, can help regulate blood pressure, burns, pressure wounds, and infectious wounds. Honey has been used by Chinese apothecaries to soothe aches and pains. The Egyptians favored using honey when they were treating wounds. Even the Greeks and Romans left behind literature that spoke of the medicinal benefits of honey for curing various forms of illnesses.
