The color of any substance depends on the structure of the molecules of the compounds included in it. Collecting nectar from various plants, the bee, like a skilled artist, transfers the palette of flowers into the color of honey. Of the millionths of a milligram of paint, it makes up the picture that we are used to calling the color of honey. Its diversity depends on the compounds contained in the petals, stamens, and pistils called anthocyanins. They belong to the chemical group of flavonoids, the difference in structure of which explains the individual color of flowers. Anthocyanins in plant cells are present in combination with glucose. The same flower can contain several anthocyanins of different composition and structure. We see this as a play of colors of the same petal: there are yellow, pink, purple, and other shades.

Previously, the variety of colors of anthocyanins was explained by their indicator properties, that is, the ability to change color depending on the acidity of the environment. Later, the influence of other factors was established, including the property of some metals to form colored complexes with flavonoids. For example, potassium ions create complex compounds with a purple color, while calcium and magnesium ions create blue complexes. The appearance of methyl groups in the structure of anthocyanins causes a red color. Many yellow flowers contain yellow flavones and flavonols. They are also found in compounds with glucose. Water-soluble flavonoids pass with nectar into honey. Plants of the families Asteraceae (sunflower, sow thistle, burdock), legumes (beans, peas, clover, alfalfa, soybeans), noricaceae (mullein) affect the color of honey through flavonoids contained in flowers with a five-membered furan cycle - aurones (derivatives of 2-benzylidene coumaron). Aurones are almost always associated with glucose, that is, they are present in plants in the form of glycosides and have a yellow or yellow-orange color.

Plants of the buckwheat, buckthorn, legume, lily, and St. John's wort families contain anthracene derivatives combined with various sugars: glucose, rhamnose, arabinose. The anthracene moiety (aglycone) is often a derivative of chrysacin (dihydroxyanthraquinone). These derivatives are found in honey and contain, along with hydroxyl groups, methyl, methoxyl, and carboxyl groups, which are color enhancers or auxochromes. The result of the action of these groups is the appearance of a yellow, orange or red tint. Compounds of these substances with sugars are highly soluble in water.

The laxative effect of honey, especially its foam, is partly due to the presence, albeit in very small quantities, of chrysacin derivatives, which enhance the peristalsis of the large intestines (the effect of medicinal herbal remedies is based precisely on this property). Foamed honey has been used as a laxative since the Middle Ages. The honey was heated for a long time, skimming off the foam until it completely disappeared. Honey prepared in this way had a strengthening effect, and foam had a laxative effect.

Hawthorn flavonoids give honey not only a reddish tint, but also cardiotonic properties, recommended for use in functional disorders of the heart, hypertension, and arrhythmia.

In the USA, honey from the succession is highly valued. Its flowers contain more than ten flavonoids and a significant amount of carotenoids. Glycosidic compounds of flavonoids, passing through nectar into honey, give it not only its yellow color, but also diuretic, diaphoretic and antiallergic properties. Flavonoids exhibit P-vitamin activity, antispasmodic, choleretic effects on the human body.

One of the common structural elements of anthocyanins, flavones and flavonols are phenolic hydroxyls.

Phenolic hydroxyl also contains the amino acid tyrosine, present in honey. When combined with iron ions, it gives a violet color that turns black, so honey cannot be stored in a metal container for a long time. (In the “Russian Folk Medicine Book” it is recommended to lubricate the abscessing gum with a black substance formed by the interaction of a calcined rusty nail with honey at night. The abscess soon breaks and the swelling subsides.)

Among flavonols, rutin is the most commonly found in plants. It is isolated from buckwheat flowers and used as a capillary-strengthening agent.

The color created with the help of flavonoids is enhanced by bees with a palette of tiny pollen grains containing carotenoids. To date, about 70 substances belonging to this type of compound have been isolated from various plants. Carotenoids contain a system of conjugated multiple bonds that affect the color of pollen. We see it yellow, brown, red, light green, purple - depending on the plant that the bee visited.

In light, phenolic hydroxyls are oxidized, and the color of carotenoids, flavonols, flavones, and anthocyanins changes. Oxidation is facilitated by oxidase enzymes, which result in the formation of hydrogen peroxide, which oxidizes carotenoids well. Catalase present in honey breaks down peroxide into water and oxygen. The more it is, the longer the color of honey remains. Catalase gets into honey with pollen. When honey is heated, it is easily destroyed and its effect on the color of the product disappears. Since the age and breed of bees influence the amount and composition of pollen, the color of honey and its stability are also directly related to these factors. The stability of the yellow color of honey carotenoids is also influenced by lipoxidase, in the presence of which the carotenoids are also oxidized and their characteristic color disappears.

There is an opinion among beekeepers that real buckwheat honey turns grey. The reason for this is the oxidation reaction of phenolic hydroxyls. Polyphenoloxidases, enzymes found in plants, also contribute.

Oxidation also affects other components of honey. In particular, the amino acid tyrosine is easily oxidized by the enzyme tyrosinase and produces the dark-colored substance melanin.

Honey glucose is oxidized into gluconic acid with the participation of glucose oxidase. The darker the honey, the more acidic it is. For example, acacia honey has less acidity than linden honey, and it is lighter in color, sunflower honey has more acidity than coriander honey, and the latter is lighter in color. Glucose oxidase enters honey from the pharyngeal glands of bees. If the honey plants are removed from the hives, the nectar remains in the bee's crop longer, and the honey is more enriched with glucose oxidase. In this case, it acquires a darker color.

Glucose and other reducing sugars, as well as furfural and hydroxymethylfurfural, enter into condensation reactions with amino acids to form dark-colored products - melanoidins, which contribute to the darkening of honey when heated and long-term storage. As the heating temperature increases, the darkening of honey increases. As free amino acids react, the increase in condensation products decreases and after 4.5 months of storage, honey darkens more slowly. There is no difference in the darkening of filtered and unfiltered honey.

To explain the color of honey, we compared the amount of total nitrogen in it and the color intensity of the product. It has been observed that as total nitrogen increases, honey clarity decreases. These findings indirectly indicate a high probability of condensation reactions of free amino acids with carbonyl compounds, in particular with glucose. There is also a correspondence between the transparency of honey and the content of oxides of alkali and alkaline earth metals in honey ash. It has been noticed that if a flower produces light-colored honey, the wax will be dark in color, and vice versa. To confirm this, we note: when bees work on a dandelion, white wax with a creamy tint is formed, and the color of honey can be from bright yellow to dark amber. When bees work on a sunflower, the honey turns out golden (light amber), and the wax turns white. Linden honey (crystallized) is white, and wax is yellow.

Bees produce wax by consuming honey and bee bread. Consequently, the coloring substances of beebread processed by bees, with transparent honey, color the wax, but the coloring substances of honey do not color the wax. Honey does not change color from the dyes contained in the wax.

The color of honey depends on natural factors: the composition of the nectar, the properties of the soil, the duration of the honey harvest, the nectar productivity of the plant, and the breed of bees. Human influence also plays a certain role. Thus, honeydew honey contains many amino acids that can enter into condensation reactions with carbonyl compounds. Plants selectively absorb various metals from the soil and mineral components that affect the color of honey and enter the nectar in different quantities. With a long bribe, honey is always more transparent than with a short bribe. Bees of different breeds and depending on the length of the proboscis choose to collect nectar the most accessible plants for themselves, containing nectar of different composition and color. Most honey plants please our eyes with golden, amber, and yellow honey of varying intensity. Sweet clover, fireweed, and rapeseed produce honey with a greenish tint, and honey from buckwheat, angelica, red clover, cranberry, and rowan - with a reddish tint. If the bees have worked hard in the burdock thickets, the honey will be dark olive-colored.

Different qualitative and quantitative amino acid compositions of honeys determine different changes in their color when heated under the same conditions. This is confirmed by the fact that clover honey almost does not change its color when heated, while buckwheat honey darkens. The color of honeydew honey changes the most when heated.

The color of freshly pumped honey changes over time. The fragrant amber stream from the honey extractor, when light hits it, fascinates with the play of unique colors. But after some time the color becomes relatively stable. Highly volatile aromatic oils (in their pure form, not only yellow, but also red, blue, green, violet) partially evaporate from a loosely closed container of honey.

So, the reasons for coloring honey in one color or another are very different, and therefore it is not entirely correct to recommend honey of light or dark shades for the treatment of specific diseases. Moreover, from the same plant, but growing in different climatic conditions, bees collect honey, which is not the same color.

If necessary, it is more correct to take the advice of S. Mladenov. He recommends using mountain honey for respiratory diseases, as well as oregano, thyme, and linden; for disorders of the digestive and intestinal tract - steppe, with mint, thyme, oregano; for heart disease - steppe, forest, lavender, mint. For kidney diseases - chestnut, from field herbs, fruit crops. Therefore, both light and dark honeys can be used to treat the same diseases.

To preserve the natural color of honey, it is necessary to exclude condensation reactions of aldehydes and amino acids. This can be achieved by storing it at a temperature not exceeding 10°C and supplying bees with drinking water with the lowest possible content of alkali and alkaline earth metal salts. Color preservation is also facilitated by storing honey in places that exclude direct exposure to sunlight and oxidation of hydroxyl groups of flavones by atmospheric oxygen, which causes honey to darken. The ingress of iron salts is most likely when bees visit water sources with a high content of iron hydroxide. Such changes remind us that apiary hygiene also affects the quality of honey.

O.N. MASHENKOV

Head: Yangolenko Lyudmila Gennadievna teacher of biology and chemistry.

Topic: Do the color, aroma and taste of honey depend on honey plants (which ones) and weather conditions?

Educational institution: Municipal Educational Institution Luchanovskaya School

Relevance

A real beekeeper—the master of the bees—can only be one who firmly knows the course of bee life and knows how to apply his knowledge to business. A.M. Butlerov.

In 7th grade biology, the topic “insects” is studied. The biology teacher gave us additional material about bees, I was interested in this because my father has been involved in beekeeping for many years, and I try to help him with this. I have a desire to seriously engage in beekeeping, but in addition to desire, I need knowledge. I know a lot about the composition and life of the bee colony, but little about the waste product - honey. What determines the color, aroma and taste of honey? We decided to study this topic together with our biology teacher. We have our own apiary, which is located in the vicinity of our village, where I conducted research in the summer.

Problem

Do the color, aroma and taste of honey depend on honey plants (which ones) and weather conditions?

Purpose: To explore what determines the color, aroma and taste of honey, using the example of one

bee family, in an apiary in the vicinity of the village of Luchanovo.

1.Study theoretical data about the color, aroma and taste of honey.

2.Study material about the variety of types of flower honey.

3. Observe the flights of bees during the period of mass flowering

honey plants. What types of plants are visited by bees more often and are different?

whether they are “consistent” in comparison with other insects.

4. To observe the influence of weather conditions on the release of nectar in honey plants

5.Analyze the results obtained and draw conclusions.

Object of study:

A bee family in an apiary in the vicinity of the village of Luchanovo.

Research methods:

Study, observation, analysis, comparison.

Hypothesis

Honey is a product obtained by processing nectar collected from plant flowers in the body of a bee.

The color, aroma and taste of honey depend on the flowers from which the nectar was collected.

Hypothesis testing

Honey color

The color of honey depends on the presence of coloring substances collected from flowers along with nectar.

However, not in all cases bees can collect nectar from the same plant species with the same

dyes. Honey of the same "botanical" variety, but collected in different places

or during certain harvest seasons, may have different colors.

Beekeepers sort honey into five groups based on color:

1.colorless (transparent as water),

2.light amber(light yellow),

3.amber(yellow)

4.dark amber(dark yellow)

5.dark honey with brown and brown tints.

When honey is stored, its color changes. It can be from light amber to light brown in color in a syrupy state, and amber in candied form.

Honey aroma

Flower honey has a specific, characteristic aroma, weak or well expressed

It depends on the presence of essential oils, which are contained in the nectar of plants visited by bees. Chemically it is possible to determine the presence of these oils in honey; we plan to study this in the future when I study the basics of chemistry.

A pronounced aroma appears when comb honey is pumped out in centrifuges, and then during subsequent processing a large amount of its aromatic substances is lost. When honey is heated, almost all the flavor evaporates, and if it is not heated correctly, honey takes on the smell of burnt sugar. The method and period of storage also affect the aroma of honey. Unfavorable conditions and length of storage weaken the aroma of honey. During fermentation, a smell unusual for honey appears, unpleasantly sour or even sour.

Beekeepers say that determining the aroma of honey is one of the indicators of its nutritional value.

Unfortunately, aroma cannot be measured in any specific units, and therefore it has to be assessed by the presence or absence of a certain pleasant characteristic honey smell inherent in a particular honey plant

A Taste of Honey

Most varieties of honey have a peculiar taste, depending on the predominance of nectar from certain honey plants. By its taste, honey connoisseurs determine its “botanical” origin.

The main components of bee honey are glucose and fructose. Using qualitative reactions to carbohydrates, the composition of honey can be determined.

This work is planned for next summer.

According to beekeepers, natural flower honey of all varieties has a sweet taste and has an irritating effect on the mucous membrane - astringency of varying intensity is felt.

These properties are not possessed by artificially dissolved sugar in honey, or sugar honey.

When unripe honey is collected and stored improperly, the honey may ferment and have a sour taste. An unpleasant taste may be due to the presence in honey of substances collected by bees along with sugar-containing products.

Consistency determines the maturity of honey and its moisture content. It depends on the chemical composition of honey, ambient temperature, storage time and methods.

Freshly pumped honey has a liquid consistency or it can be in the form of a thick, homogeneous syrupy mass. After one or two months it crystallizes and becomes denser.

No matter how hard honey is, it has a sticky surface when cut.

Based on the fact that the color, aroma and taste of honey mainly depend on honey-bearing plants, what types of honey exist in our region?

MAIN TYPES OF HONEY in the TOMSK REGION.

Name	Characteristic
Acacia honey	Honey collected from white and yellow acacia flowers is one of the best varieties. Fresh-transparent, becomes greasy when crystallized, white in color
Budyakov honey	Bees collect from crimson flowers of rosebud or thistle. It is either colorless or greenish or golden, and upon crystallization it becomes fine-grained.
Alyssum honey	Bees produce nectar from borage (borage). Honey is transparent and light and has a pleasant taste.
Cornflower honey	Bees collect from blue and field cornflowers. Greenish-yellow honey with a slightly bitter aftertaste. Reminds me of the smell of almonds.
Mustard honey	This honey is still liquid, has a golden yellow color, then becomes creamy. Crystallizes into small grains, has a pleasant aroma and sweet taste
Buckwheat honey	Bees make this honey from the nectar of flowering buckwheat. Has dark yellow with reddish shade of color, peculiar aroma and specific taste. Upon crystallization, it turns into a mushy mass.
Sweet clover honey	Light amber or white in color, has an aroma reminiscent of vanilla.
Fireweed honey	It is transparent, with a greenish tint, becomes white after crystallization, resembles snow grains, and sometimes lard. Warmed Honey Yellow
clover honey	Transparent, colorless, upon crystallization forms a solid white mass
Meadow honey	Honey is golden yellow, rarely brown, and has a pleasant aroma and taste. Bees prepare it from the nectar of various flowers growing in the meadows.
Alfalfa honey	It is usually colorless or with an amber tint; upon crystallization it becomes white in color and has a thick consistency. It has a pleasant aroma and a specific taste.
Sunflower honey	honey is golden yellow in color, sweet in taste, has a weak aroma and a pleasant, somewhat tart taste. It crystallizes into small grains becomes light amber with a greenish tint.
Rapeseed honey	It has a whitish color, sometimes yellowish, a pleasant aroma, cloying, very thick.
Cucumber honey	Honey is yellowish in color, transparent, with a pleasant taste and aroma. Bees prepare it from nectar collected from cucumber flowers.

From the information I studied and observations of bees, I came to the following conclusions:

Bees find all the nutrients they need in the flowers of honey plants.

For many thousands of years, flowers and insects, adapting to each other, ensured their existence on earth.

Flowers pollinated by insects are always brightly colored and emit a strong aroma and, in addition, secrete sweet nectar.

Various kinds of butterflies and flies fly randomly from a flower of one plant species to a flower of another species.

Some beetles and flies have a short proboscis, so they cannot reach nectar.

Bees are distinguished by their great “constancy”; having started working on the flowers of one type of plant, a large group of bees continued to collect nectar on the same flowers

During the period of mass flowering of honey plants, bees did not switch to other plants, although there were deviations, but this was most often due to unfavorable weather conditions.

CALENDAR OF OBSERVATIONS OF FLIGHTS OF THE BEE FAMILY (July)

Borage

Bees in our apiary most often visited such plants as borage, raspberries, fireweed (fireweed), and meadow clover.

The main honey plants in our apiary are fireweed, clover and borage.

Fireweed or fireweed is a tall herbaceous plant that blooms in July-August. It grows in forests, meadows, and sometimes on peat bogs. One of the most generous honey plants. The honey is transparent with a greenish tint and has a very delicate taste.

Red clover grows in meadows and is considered the main honey plant. Light, excellent taste and aroma, clover honey has no equal.

Beekeepers associate the onset of the main bribe with the time of the beginning of clover flowering.

Borage (borage) is a plant 60-100 cm high. The leaves are large, fleshy. The flowers are large, collected in corymbose panicles. The corolla is blue, and fresh flowers and buds are pink. Blooms from mid-summer to autumn.

Raspberries bloom in early summer and last for about a month. Raspberry honey is light, white in color and has a pleasant aroma and taste. Raspberry comb honey is very delicate.

What affects honey yield?

The totality of all meteorological conditions.

The state of the weather in a particular beekeeping season.

The most favorable conditions for honey collection are windless, warm and moderately humid summers.

When sunny days are replaced by short rains that fall at night or early in the morning.

The same honey plants produce more or less nectar under different weather conditions.

And the color, aroma and taste of honey largely depend on this.

Nectar secretion from fireweed at different times of the day

Nectar secretion from CLOVER at different times of the day

Nectar secretion from the boletus at different times of the day

Nectar secretion from RASPBERRY at different times of the day

DURING THE WIND

Nectaries reduce nectar production most in fireweed and raspberries.

When the wind is hot, no nectar is released at all, and the bees stop their flights.

If such weather drags on for a long time, the honey subsequently turns out to be less aromatic and not very tasty, and the “harvest” is small.

ON A SUNNY DAY

On a sunny day, when sunlight is at its maximum, nectar is abundantly released in all honey-bearing plants: cucumber and raspberries, meadow clover and fireweed flowers. In clear sunny weather, all plants actively produce sugar, and nectar is abundantly released in honey-bearing plants.

When the air temperature rises to thirty degrees or higher, plants sharply reduce nectar production. And the bees stop their flights at this time

The wind also adversely affects the release of nectar, and if it blows in hot weather, then the nectar is not released at all.

This summer was favorable for honey harvest; the bees processed a lot of nectar into aromatic and tasty honey.

Our honey is flower honey, but its properties are similar to meadow honey, fireweed and clover honey. It is golden yellow, very fragrant and excellent in taste.

Conclusion

Studying theoretical data, making observations, comparisons and analyzing the results obtained on this problem: Do the color, aroma and taste of honey depend on honey plants and weather conditions? I came to a conclusion:

The aroma, color and taste of honey directly depend on what plants grow in our apiary.

On the territory of our apiary there are many flowering plants, but not all of them are honey-bearing, and bees are “well versed” in this, visiting those plants whose flowers are rich in nectar.

In addition, bees are distinguished by their “consistency” in visiting the flowers of one particular plant species. In our apiary these are fireweed, borage, clover and raspberries.

The resulting honey is similar in properties to meadow, fireweed and clover honey. It is golden yellow, very fragrant and excellent in taste.

Weather conditions also affect the color, aroma and taste of honey.

The same honey plants, under different weather conditions, secrete different amounts of nectar, which bees then process into honey.

The good quality of honey is influenced by windless, warm and moderately humid conditions.

weather that then gives way to light rains.

And tasty and aromatic honey will be obtained if the nectar does not contain excess moisture and has a sufficient content of fructose, glucose and aromatic substances.

Honey contains very few aromatic and mineral substances, as well as various acids, but the taste and aroma of honey depend on their presence.

Their presence can only be determined using chemical reactions.

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Honey: composition, properties, types

Bees produce honey from nectar or honeydew. At the same time, complex transformations occur in the bee’s body. Honey consists almost entirely of plant nectar; only some components enter the honey from the bee’s body. Honey contains about 300 different substances; it is based on simple sugars - fructose and glucose.

Honey has a complex chemical composition. It contains about 20% water and 80% dry matter, of which grape sugar makes up 35% and fruit sugar - 40%. In addition, honey contains sucrose (1.3-5%), maltose (5-10%), dextrins (3-4%). The amount of protein substances in flower honey is 0.04-0.29%, and in honeydew honey - 0.08-0.17%. Honey contains up to 20 amino acids.

The darkening of honey when heated is explained by the fact that amino compounds react with monosaccharides and dark-colored compounds (melocondins) are formed.

Honey contains malic, lactic, tartaric, oxalic, citric, succinic and other acids. The acidity of flower honeys (pH) is 3.78, honeydew - 4.57. Flower honeys have significantly less (up to 0.14%) mineral substances (ash content) than honeydew honeys (1.6%). Honey contains enzymes such as invertase, diastase, catalase, lipase, etc. The predominant vitamins in honey are B1, B2, B3, pantothenic acid, nicotinic acid (PP), ascorbic acid (C), etc.

Unnatural honey is considered to be sugar honey processed by bees, as well as honey from the sweet juices of fruits, vegetables and artificial honey.

The name of honey depends on the type of plant from which the nectar is collected, for example, buckwheat, sunflower, sainfoin, sweet clover, linden, white acacia, heather, etc. This honey is called monofloral.

But honey may contain impurities of other origins. For example, sunflower honey sometimes contains alfalfa honey. Small amounts of impurities do not affect the quality of honey. Honey produced by bees from the nectar of various plants is called polyfloral honey. Sometimes the name of honey is associated with the area or land where bees collect nectar (for example, Carpathian, Far Eastern, Bashkir, meadow, forest).

The color of honey comes in all shades, from light yellow to brown and brown, depending on the type of plant from which the bees collected the nectar. There are three groups of honey varieties based on color: light, moderately colored and dark. Dark honey is healthier than light honey. It contains more minerals and other substances.

The transformation of nectar into honey begins in the bees. Bees transfer a solution of carbohydrates, mineral salts, aromatic substances with water and other substances from plants to the wax cells of honeycombs. Many bees work not only to collect and transport nectar, but also to process it in the hive.

To produce honey from nectar, bees evaporate water, mix it in honeycombs and treat it with enzymes. As a result, the chemical composition of the product changes. The bulk of the water evaporates from the nectar on the first day.

Bees seal mature honey in cells with wax caps. Based on this feature, its maturity and pumping time are determined. Unsealed honey has high water content and contains a lot of undigested sucrose, which impairs its quality. Unripe honey cannot be stored for a long time.

There is no garden without an apiary, and there is no fruit without bees.

4/5 of the total mass of honey consists of natural sugars glucose and fructose, ash elements, enzymes, organic acids, nitrogenous compounds, vitamins, aromatic, biologically active and other substances. The amount of water in most varieties of mature honey is about 18% (depending on the area, it can range from 15 to 21%). Unripe honey contains more than 22% water.

Sugars are the main component of honey. High-quality honeys contain about 75% simple sugars (glucose, usually about 35%, fructose - 40%). Their ratio determines the physical qualities of honey: with an increase in glucose content, its ability to crystallize increases, and with an increase in fructose content, it becomes sweeter in taste and more hygroscopic.

The aromatic substances of various plants enter the hive with nectar and give a unique taste to mature honey. Most of them are in mature honey. If honey is pumped out and stored without tightly closing, the aromatic substances are lost and its smell becomes weaker.

Organic acids give honey a certain taste. Among them, the most common are lemon, apple, gluconic and milk.

Honey contains few vitamins, but when mixed with other components they are very beneficial for the body.

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, honey with bread was a daily traditional and very healthy Russian food.
Then the endless wars of the first half of the twentieth century undermined honey production in Russia.
In the mid-twentieth century, honey was practically forced out of Russian tables by the mass industrial production of sugar (sucrose), which had been established by that time in the USSR. And honey in Russia has turned from a necessary daily product into a rare delight for pampering.
Now Russia is catastrophically behind the countries of Europe and the USA in terms of honey production, but it is sharply ahead of these countries in terms of the many times higher price of sold honey. For more information on this, see the article “HOney SITUATION AT THE STATE LEVEL” below.

After some time, the pumped-out honey crystallizes (sugar turns into crystals). The ability of honey to crystallize and the rate of crystallization is influenced primarily by the ratio of glucose and fructose. The more glucose in honey, the faster crystallization begins and occurs.

Honey crystallization can be accelerated or slowed down by temperature. It occurs most quickly at a temperature of 13-14°C. When it decreases, the formation of crystals is weakened, since the viscosity of honey increases. At temperatures above 14°C, the ability to form crystals decreases, and at 40°C they dissolve (but at the same time honey loses its healing properties).

Crystallization (sugarization) does not deteriorate the quality of honey, the crystals only give it a certain appearance and attractiveness.

Honey's resistance to heat is low. The nutritional and medicinal properties of heated products are reduced. At 40°C and above, honey loses its special beneficial properties and turns into a simple sweet substance (practically into ordinary glucose-fructose syrup). At the same time, honey loses its bactericidal properties and aroma. Heat also changes the color of honey - it becomes darker, sometimes brown. The more intense and prolonged the influence of heat, the more the quality of honey deteriorates. Therefore, it is advisable to store it in its normal state, without heating it unnecessarily.

The aroma of honey is characteristic of this variety and is determined by the content of various substances brought with nectar (120 names). The ratio of aromatic substances in the nectar of different honey plants is different. Honey produced by bees from sugar syrup without nectar impurities is odorless.

The viscosity of honey depends on temperature. Cooling from +30 to +20°C increases the viscousness of honey by 4 times.

Honey has a bactericidal effect, enhances metabolism, accelerates tissue regeneration, and has an anti-inflammatory, absorbable and tonic effect. Honey normalizes the activity of the gastrointestinal tract, stimulates the function of internal organs, prevents sclerosis, normalizes sleep, stimulates the body's defenses, etc. It was found that bees, when making honey from nectar, add a substance to it - inhibin, which they produce, as a result of which the honey becomes a completely sterile product. Artificial honey made from sugar does not have the healing properties of natural honey.

When used externally, honey disinfects and kills all germs, staphylococci, etc. During the First and Second World Wars, doctors used honey to apply bandages. Such a bandage will never dry out, the wound is quickly covered with new epithelium (overgrown). Honeycomb honey can be used to treat eye cataracts, as honey increases blood circulation at the site of application, which leads to tissue cleansing.

When used internally, honey is a powerful energy booster, as it is 100% absorbed by the human body. There are recommendations for athletes to eat 200 g of honey some time before the competition.

Honey neutralizes alcohols. You can cure alcoholism with honey by giving a tablespoon of honey every half hour to the drinking person, no matter what condition he is in. At the same time, an aversion to alcohol develops, and the person stops drinking.

It is very useful for the teeth and the entire oral cavity to chew honey thoroughly and for a long time in the honeycomb until the honey taste completely disappears. Then take and thoroughly chew a new portion of comb honey. This is an excellent prevention of caries, stomatitis and gingivitis.

Types of honey

Monofloral honey. Honey is never collected by bees from only one type of honey plant. Therefore, honey is called monofloral (buckwheat, linden, etc.) if 40% of the nectar or more is collected from a given honey plant. The maximum these percentages can reach is 60, because... It is impossible to force a bee to fly to only one type of honey plant, and in the surrounding nature there is never only one type of plant.
In addition, to obtain monofloral honey, the period of its collection must coincide with the flowering period of, mainly, only one plant.

Polyfloral honey- prefabricated honey produced by bees from nectar collected from plants of several species. The name of polyfloral honey is associated with the type of honey-bearing land. For example: forest, mountain, steppe, meadow, etc.

May honey. First pumping honey is often called May honey.
The name "May honey" is not related to the characteristics of bee honey and has a purely philistine name among buyers.
The name comes from those ancient times when the chronology in Russia was different, and May began two weeks later than the current chronology. Then the first honey was pumped out that month.

Honeydew honey- this is honey that bees produce in hot, dry summers not from the nectar of flowering plants, but from the sweet secretions of some insects: aphids, psyllids, scale insects (honeydew honey of animal origin) and from honeydew - sugary substances of some plants, such as linden, fir , spruce, oak, willow, maple, apple, hazel, larch, aspen, elm, pine, rose, pear, plum (honeydew honey of plant origin).
Its color usually ranges from dark (black, tarry) and dark brown (honey from various deciduous trees) to dark green in the honeycomb cells. But honeydew honey from coniferous trees can be light yellow.
Honeydew honey has a less pronounced aroma, depending on the source of the honeydew: it can be unpleasant, smell like burnt sugar, or not at all. The consistency is syrupy, viscous, honey does not melt in the mouth for a long time. Honeydew honey, being cheaper, is used mainly in baking and confectionery production.

Some varieties of honey

Clover honey- colorless and almost transparent, has a weak aroma of clover flowers, after crystallization it takes the form of a white lard-like mass, has good taste. Predominant in colonies of gray mountain Caucasian bees.

Raspberry honey- light golden color with an exceptionally pleasant aroma and taste; is in great demand as a remedy. Collected from many apiaries.

Buckwheat honey- has a bright light brown color with a slightly reddish tint, has a strong pleasant aroma and good taste. Buckwheat honey contains up to 0.3% protein and significantly more iron than light honeys.

Heather honey- reddish-brown in color, has a strong specific aroma and slightly tart taste, after crystallization it remains brown in color. Heather honey is the richest in protein (1.86%) and mineral salts. In terms of taste, it is classified as low-grade honey.

Field honey- has many shades, from light amber to light brown. This honey is of high quality, with a strong aroma and good taste, and therefore is in great demand.

Forest honey- also has many shades, from light yellow to dark brown. It is always darker than meadow and field honey. In terms of taste, honey collected from summer herbs is not inferior to meadow and field honey, but if it contains a large percentage of honeydew or buckthorn and heather, it loses its taste.

Meadow honey- from light yellow to light brown color, has a very aromatic bouquet (especially from Rosaceae) and a pleasant taste and therefore is not inferior to other honeys.

All types of benign honey are very useful, and useful, almost equally.
Candied honey is just as healthy as fresh honey.
Complete sugaring of good mature honey occurs 3-4 weeks after honey collection.
Taking into account that the last honey bribes are taken in September, by October 20 all good-quality honey should only be candied (with the exception of two rare varieties - acacia and heather).

The color of honey depending on its origin

The plant is the color of honey
Common apricot – brown-yellow
Acacia - pale yellow
Hawthorn – dark brown
Meadow cornflower – brown
Veronica - white
Common cherry – light brown
White mustard - lemon yellow
Common buckwheat – dark brown
Pear - light green
Yellow sweet clover - golden yellow
Oak - yellow-green
Tatarian honeysuckle – yellow-hot
Willow - light yellow
Ivan-tea - green
Horse chestnut - burgundy
Common chestnut - dark red
Clover white - brown
Red clover - chocolate
Norway maple - dark yellow
Tatarian maple - grayish-white
Sycamore maple - grayish-yellow
Mullein - light yellow
Linden - soft green
Alfalfa - dirty gray
Raspberry - grayish white
Fescue team - white
Dandelion officinalis – orange
Walnut – yellow-green
Plantain - grayish-white
Sunflower - golden yellow
Rapeseed - lemon yellow
Radish - pale yellow
Common bruise - dark blue
Plum - yellowish brown
Phacelia - blue
Cherry – yellow-brown
Sainfoin - brown
Apple tree - dirty yellow

Methods for determining honey quality

1. In order to determine the maturity of liquid (uncandied, fresh) honey, lower a spoon into it and begin to rotate it. Unripe honey flows from the spoon, and mature honey is wound, lying on the spoon in folds like a ribbon.

2. Take liquid (uncandied) honey for testing by lowering a thin stick into the container. If this is real honey, then it stretches after the stick as a long continuous thread, and when this thread is broken, it will completely descend, forming a tower, a pagoda on the surface of the honey, which then slowly disperses.
Fake honey will behave like glue: it will flow abundantly and drip down from the stick, forming splashes.

Fresh ripe honey flows from a spoon in thick, continuous ribbons.

Normal thickness of mature fresh honey when dripping from a spoon (at a temperature of +20 o C).

3. High-quality honey should not foam. Foaminess indicates fermentation, i.e. spoilage of honey. Natural honey cannot ferment, because... it is bactericidal. (To obtain alcoholic beverages from honey by fermentation, it is either dissolved in water and brought to a boil. When heated, honey loses its bactericidal properties and can be fermented.)

4. Over time, honey becomes cloudy and thickens (candied) - this is a sure sign of good quality. Liquid honey is usually available in the summer (July-August) during the period of its pumping. After a maximum of 1-2 months (depending on the variety), it crystallizes.
Therefore, if liquid honey is sold in winter or spring, it means that it is either heated or adulterated. It should be remembered that when heated to a temperature of +40°C and above, honey loses its main beneficial properties, turning into a simple sweet fructose-glucose syrup.
Candied natural honey retains all its beneficial properties, and it is not advisable to heat it or add it to hot dishes or drinks.

Most often, real honey is candied 2-3 weeks after collection. Considering that the last bribe is taken at the end of September - beginning of October, by October 20, natural honey can only be candied. The exception is white acacia honey (acacia honey), which does not crystallize for a long time (sometimes until spring), and heather honey turning into a jelly-like mass.

FROM RUSSIAN HISTORY. Once upon a time, Catherine II issued a Decree to flog traders of “thin” honey in November and later. Unfortunately, now this Decree is not being implemented, which is why before the New Year, and even in the spring, the shelves in Russian stores are completely lined with clear, uncandied “honey,” i.e. a known falsification.

It happens that during storage honey forms a crystallized layer on the bottom and a syrupy layer on top. This indicates that the honey is immature and contains an increased amount of water.

5. Check the smell and taste. Adulterated honey is usually odorless. Real honey has a fragrant aroma. This smell is incomparable. Honey mixed with sugar has no aroma, and its taste is close to the taste of sweetened water.

6. Determine whether honey contains starch. To do this, put a little honey in a glass, pour boiling water, stir and cool. After this, add a few drops of iodine there. If the composition turns blue, it means that starch has been added to the honey.

7. The addition of starch syrup can be determined with ammonia, which is added dropwise to a sample of honey, previously dissolved in distilled water (1:2). The solution turns white with a brown precipitate.

8. An admixture of chalk can be detected if you add a few drops of vinegar to honey diluted with distilled water. In the presence of chalk, the mixture boils due to the release of carbon dioxide.
Or you can simply drop vinegar or some other acid onto the honey. If the honey “boils,” it means there is chalk.

9. Determination of the addition of sucrose (sugar) to honey. Dissolve honey in hot distilled water (in extreme cases, boiled) in a ratio of 1:2 until you obtain an easily flowing (fairly liquid) solution. Inspect for mechanical impurities - a solution of natural honey (without added insoluble additives) will definitely be transparent, without sediment and without foreign impurities on the surface. Then carefully drop a few drops of silver nitrate solution there, observing the reaction. If honey is without added sugar, there will be no cloudiness.
If sugar is added to honey, a clearly visible whitish cloudiness will immediately begin around the drops.

10. Presence of mechanical impurities. We take a sample of honey into a small test tube, add boiled or distilled water and dissolve it. Natural honey dissolves completely, the solution is transparent. If there are insoluble additives (for adulteration), a mechanical impurity will be found on the surface or in the sediment.

11. Traditionally, light varieties of honey are considered the best. However, this is not always true. For example, dark-colored honey, say, buckwheat, may contain more iron, copper, manganese and other important substances and be more valuable to the body than light honey.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION:

In general, all varieties of natural honey are almost equally very healthy and necessary for a healthy diet. The difference between different types of honey is more in their varied taste and appearance, but the benefits are approximately the same and are always excellent (see below the conclusion of Yu.A. Cherevko, professor at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy).

The main thing is that the honey is not adulterated and not collected in areas with a high content of toxic substances.

It must be taken into account that the toxic substances that fall on the plants in the honey collected from them are concentrated (i.e., they are in a much higher concentration). Bees are insensitive to many toxic substances, and for people such honey can be very harmful, even leading to widespread severe and even fatal poisoning (such cases are quite common, because it is simply unrealistic to test honey for the presence of all possible toxic substances in the laboratory - there are too many of these substances).

Honey collected from honey plants at military training grounds, near chemical industry enterprises, large airfields, thermal power plants, in areas of increased radioactive contamination, as well as in areas of agriculture that use intensive chemicalization of fields with highly toxic pesticides is undesirable.

In Russia, there are quite a lot of heavily chemically or radiation-contaminated areas in which extracting honey is impractical. As an example about one of these zones - the Altai Mountains - see the article "Roscosmos and the poisoned honey of the Altai Mountains" below on this page.
IN THE APPENDIX FOR THE CURIOUS at the end of this page there are maps of various man-made pollution of the territory of Russia.

Honey storage

Honey should be stored in complete darkness, because... many beneficial substances quickly disintegrate when exposed to light. (This applies to all food products.)

It is best to store honey in tightly closed glass containers (for example, glass jars with screw-on lids) in a cool place and always in complete darkness.

During long-term storage, loosely sealed honey can greatly change its specific gravity, its own weight, and water content.

If it is stored in a dry place in an open container, the water content in it can decrease to 14%, and the weight will decrease by 4-5%. And if stored in a humid room, honey is able to absorb ambient humidity from the air.

At 60% relative humidity, mature honey becomes watery, and as humidity increases, the wateriness increases (honey absorbs moisture from the air). In this case, as a rule, the honey turns sour.

In a dry room, sealed mature honey is well preserved at any temperature. And in case of high humidity, it is better to store at a temperature below +10 degrees Celsius (for example, in a refrigerator) or above +27 (but not more than R32).

Honey can absorb foreign odors, so the dishes and the room must be clean. You cannot store sauerkraut, herring, vegetables, kerosene, etc. in it.

Honey should be stored in tightly closed glass, enamel or ceramic containers (but under no circumstances in iron, copper or galvanized containers). Galvanized and copper utensils are strictly prohibited! Honey enters into a chemical reaction with zinc and copper, filling with toxic salts.

Unenamelled metal cookware can only be stainless steel or aluminum, but unenamelled metals are not desirable in either case.

Honey can also be successfully stored in wooden barrels or boxes. The most suitable material for barrels is linden. Beech, cedar, and poplar are also suitable. In barrels made of coniferous wood, honey acquires a resinous smell, in aspen it becomes bitter, and in oak it turns black.

The shelf life of honey under optimal conditions is one year. After this, it loses its antimicrobial properties. The amount of glucose and fructose decreases by 10-20%. Vitamins B1, B2 and C begin to break down. The amount of sucrose and acids increases.

If you want to turn thickened honey into liquid, place the container with honey in a saucepan with hot water and heat while stirring (it is not recommended to heat the honey itself directly over the fire).
However, remember, when heated to 37-40 degrees Celsius and above, honey inevitably begins to lose many of its beneficial (healing) properties, turning into an ordinary sweet fructose-glucose mass.
For this reason, you should not add honey to hot tea or other hot drinks.
In addition, when heating honey above 45 gr. C part of fructose forms oxymethylfurfural- a substance harmful to bees.
If you need to dissolve crystallized honey, then you need to heat it only in a water bath and make sure that the water temperature does not exceed 50 degrees. WITH.

Curious things in the world of honey

Macedonian beekeeper sues bear for stealing honey
The state was responsible for the bear's guilt

In Macedonia, a rather unusual court case took place in which a beekeeper sued a bear. As a result, by a decision of the court of the city of Bitola, the clubfoot was found guilty of stealing honey and causing damage to the beekeeper’s farm.

Speaking about the details of the incident, the beekeeper said that he honestly tried to ward off the offender with the help of loud turbo-folk music.

“I tried to scare away the bear with bright lights and music, because I heard that bears are afraid of this,” Zoran Kiseloski told the press after the conclusion of the case in his favor, which had been going on in court for a whole year. “So I bought a generator, installed lights in the territory and turned on the music."

The bear did not approach for several weeks, but as soon as the generator stopped working and the music stopped, the clubfoot went for honey again. Then the injured beekeeper went to court with a demand to curb the wild robber.

The bear was found guilty, but since it is not someone’s property and belongs to a state-protected species, the court ordered the state to pay 140 thousand dinars (about $3,550) in damages to the beekeeper, but ordered the victim to improve the protection of his apiary in the future so as not to expose the wild animal to unnecessary temptation.

Counterfeits of honey and methods for identifying them

Adulteration, or counterfeiting, of bee honey has been known since ancient times, especially in connection with the development of the sugar industry.

Amos Root in his “Encyclopedia of Beekeeping” (1876) reports on Hassell’s book “The Detection of Adulteration” (1855), where, in his opinion, information about the adulteration of honey is provided for the first time. He cites a quote that is still relevant today: “Fake and adulterated honey is very common in our markets. The substance usually used is ordinary sugar, diluted with water in the form of syrup and flavored with various aromatic substances. This preparation is usually mixed with real honey.” Even alum, which is harmful to health, was found among the impurities in counterfeit products.

Over the past century, falsification techniques have improved. They began to use molasses, invert sugar and sucrose. Various carbohydrate-containing substances, such as potato and corn starch, and other products, were used for counterfeiting.

It has become difficult to distinguish counterfeit honey from natural honey not only organoleptically, but also during laboratory tests.

Therefore, in the articles below on this page, the editors of SuperCook give all possible ways to independently test honey at home. Some of these methods are repeated in different articles, which indicates their popularity.

The state has taken upon itself to protect honey consumers from purchasing counterfeits in the retail chain, but often honey, in addition to markets and stores, is purchased from private individuals.

Consumers should be aware of the existence of counterfeit honey and be able to recognize them.

To date, known honey counterfeits can be divided into three large groups: natural honeys with the addition of foreign products to increase their mass and viscosity, honeys made by bees from sweet products of non-nectar origin, and artificial honeys.

Honey going on sale must always comply with GOST. GOST must be indicated on the label. Any deviation from it indicates unnaturalness and falsification. To assess the quality of natural honey, 43 indicators are proposed in the scientific literature: maturity, stability, water content, sucrose... But, unfortunately, these requirements are often violated. How to determine benign natural bee honey?

Regardless of where you buy honey, you should always ask where and when it was collected.

When buying honey in a specialty store(which, however, in Russia is also not a guarantee against counterfeits - nowadays we have plenty of scammers everywhere) read it carefully label. She will tell you what kind of honey it is.

White label will indicate quality honey, blue— that the honey is of low quality or honeydew. The label must contain the standard, variety, botanical type of honey, time and place of its collection, name and address of the supplier.

Methods for determining honey quality

People have their own methods for determining the quality of honey, for example, by using chemical pencil. The essence is this: a layer of honey is applied to paper, a finger or a spoon and drawn over it with a chemical pencil, or the pencil is dipped into the honey itself. It is assumed that the honey is adulterated, i.e. contains all sorts of impurities (sugar, sugar honey, as well as an increased amount of water), then a colored pencil mark will remain. However, researcher V.G. Chudakov in 1972 tested 36 samples of honey of varying quality, including 13 falsified ones, and believes that this folk method of determining the naturalness of honey and assessing its quality is absolutely wrong.

There is another popular method for identifying counterfeit honey; it involves testing on blotting paper. A small amount of honey is placed on blotting paper. If after a few minutes a watery spot appears on the back of the paper, this is considered a sign of falsification. Again, V.G. Chudakov conducted laboratory studies of this sample, which led to the conclusion that the sample actually allows one to identify almost 100% of counterfeit honey, but in addition, some natural honeys also fall into the category of counterfeits.

If you buy honey, look in reference books to see what it should look like. The main thing is that it must have a certain aroma, honey taste, that is, a bouquet corresponding to a certain type of natural honey; The color must match.

If the honey is too white, This should raise suspicion, is it sugary? If the color is dark brown- Isn’t he a honeydew? If its aroma is dulled, the taste of caramel is felt - which means it is melted honey.

Also pay attention to the consistency of the honey.- it must correspond to the density of the variety, at a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius, it must be wound onto a spoon like a ribbon, with sweet threads that are interrupted at a certain moment.

Liquid honey should raise suspicion. Most likely, this is unripe honey. It will not be stored, it will ferment, as it contains a lot of water. Such honey will not “wrap” around the spoon, but will simply flow off it. If you buy honey in winter, it should not be runny, and if it is, it has most likely been heated or diluted.

When purchasing, check honey for fermentation. If, when stirring, you feel that it is not viscous, it is actively foaming and gas bubbles appear on the surface. It gives off a specific sour smell and also has an alcoholic or burnt taste.

Before buying a large amount of honey, buy 100-200 grams for testing.

Beware of purchasing honey from apiaries located along roads with heavy traffic. Such honey may contain an increased amount of lead compounds and other substances that reach the flowers with car exhaust fumes. Lead gets into honey with nectar and pollen, and this is dangerous for the health of those who consume it.

Honey collected in areas with unfavorable ecology is also very harmful (see maps below).

How to identify impurities in honey

To identify various impurities in honey The following methods are recommended. Pour honey into a transparent jar, then add distilled water - the honey will dissolve and impurities will settle at the bottom.

• In order to discover admixture of flour or starch in honey you need to pour 3-5 ml of an aqueous solution of honey (1:2) into a jar or glass and add 3-5 drops of Lugol's solution (or tincture of iodine). If honey contains flour or starch, the solution will turn blue.
• Addition of starch syrup(a mixture of cool water and starchy sugar) can be recognized by its appearance, stickiness and lack of crystallization. You can also mix one part of honey with 2-3 parts of distilled water, add a quarter of the volume of 96% alcohol and shake. If the honey contains starch syrup, the solution will take on a milky color. After this solution settles, a transparent semi-liquid sticky mass (dextrin) will settle. If there is no impurity, the solution will remain transparent.
• Detect impurities of sugar (beet) molasses and ordinary sugar You can add a solution of silver nitrate (lapis) to a 5-10% solution of honey in water. If a white precipitate of silver chloride appears, this indicates the presence of an impurity. If there is no sediment, then the honey is pure. There is another way: to 5 ml of a 20% solution of honey in distilled water, add 22.5 ml of methyl (wood) alcohol; if an abundant yellowish-white precipitate forms, the honey contains sugar syrup.
• For detection invert sugar impurities There is a rather complicated method: grind 5 g of honey with a small amount of ether (in which the breakdown products of fructose are dissolved), then filter the ethereal solution into a bowl, evaporate to dryness and add 2-3 drops of a freshly prepared 1% solution of resorcinol in concentrated water to the residue hydrochloric acid (specific weight 1.125 g). If the impurity turns orange (to cherry red), it means there is invert sugar.

Increased percentage of sucrose in honey, which can be established in laboratory conditions, indicates its poor quality: in natural flower honey there is no more than 5% sucrose, no more than 10% in honeydew. The better the quality of natural honey, the less sucrose it contains.“Sugar” honey has its own organoleptic characteristics: the smell of old honeycombs, a bland, inexpressive taste, a liquid consistency (if it is fresh), and during long-term storage it becomes thick, sticky, and sticky.

“Sugar” honey, like all unnatural honeys, is distinguished by the absence of vitamins, organic acids, protein and aromatic substances, and mineral salts. In sugar honey, the main element is silicon and there are practically no other salts, there are only traces of them. In natural honey it’s the other way around.

• If honey does not crystallize, then we can assume that there is admixture of potato molasses.
• In order to discover admixture of honeydew honey Pour 1 part of an aqueous solution of honey (1:1) into a glass and add 2 parts of lime water, then heat the mixture to a boil. If brown flakes form and precipitate, this indicates the presence of an admixture of honeydew honey.

SET OF EXPRESS HONEY QUALITY TESTS WHEN PURCHASING

(Some points will repeat the above, but repetition is the mother of learning, since any reasonable adult is simply obliged not to allow himself to be fooled by any kind of rogue scoundrels and in all cases to be able to choose):

Is it possible to buy honey by hand? Only if you are sure what exactly you are buying. Selling honey in a store is also not a guarantee of its quality.

The only real guarantee of the quality of purchased honey is personal acquaintance with the beekeeper, confidence in his integrity and the knowledge that his apiary is located in a prosperous area. Therefore, it is best to buy honey from a familiar beekeeper directly in his apiary.

The most common honey adulterator is sugar syrup. Unripe honey is often diluted with the same syrup to give it the missing sweetness.

First, the honey must be mature. After all, bees work on nectar for about a week: they evaporate the water, enrich it with enzymes, and break down complex sugars into simple ones. During this time, the honey is infused. The bees seal the finished product with wax caps - this is the kind of honey that has all its beneficial properties and can be stored for a long time (but no more than one year).

Very often, beekeepers pump out honey during honey collection, without waiting for it to ripen, due to a lack of honeycombs. The water content in such honey is sometimes twice the norm, it is little enriched with enzymes and sucrose, and quickly sours.

To determine the maturity of fresh, uncandied honey, its temperature is brought to 20 degrees. C, stirring with a spoon. Then the spoon is taken out and started to rotate. Ripe honey wraps around her. Over time, honey may become sugary; this is normal and does not in any way affect the taste, aroma, or healing qualities of honey.

Using simple tests you can determine whether honey is adulterated.
— Flour and starch are determined by adding a drop of iodine to a small amount of honey diluted with water. If the solution turns blue, honey with flour or starch.
— If the solution sizzles when adding vinegar essence, there is chalk in the honey.
- If in a 5-10% aqueous solution of honey, when adding a small amount of lapis solution, turbidity forms around the drops and a white precipitate forms, sugar has been added.

How can you determine the quality of honey?

1) By color.
Each type of honey has its own color, unique to it. Flower honey is light yellow in color, linden honey is amber, ash honey is transparent like water, buckwheat honey has different shades of brown. Pure honey without impurities is usually transparent, no matter what color it is.
Honey, which contains additives (sugar, starch, other impurities), is cloudy, and if you look closely, you can find sediment in it.

2) By aroma.
Real honey has a fragrant aroma. This smell is incomparable. Honey mixed with sugar has no aroma, and its taste is close to the taste of sweetened water.

3) By viscosity.
Take honey for testing by lowering a thin stick into the container. If this is real honey, then it follows the stick as a long continuous thread, and when this thread is broken, it will completely descend, forming a tower, a pagoda on the surface of the honey, which will then slowly disperse.
Fake honey will behave like glue: it will flow abundantly and drip down from the stick, forming splashes.

4) By consistency.
In real honey it is thin and delicate. Honey is easily rubbed between your fingers and absorbed into the skin, which cannot be said about a fake. Adulterated honey has a rough texture; when rubbed, lumps remain on your fingers.

Before buying honey in reserve at the market, take the product you like from 2-3 regular sellers. To start, 100 grams each. Do the recommended quality tests at home and only then buy it for future use from the same sellers.

5) Check if water and sugar have been added to the honey.
To do this, add a drop of honey to a piece of low-grade, unglued paper (for example, regular newspaper or toilet paper), which absorbs moisture well. If it spreads across the paper, forming wet spots, or even seeps through it, it is fake honey.

6) Determine whether the honey contains starch.
To do this, put a little honey in a glass, pour boiling water, stir and cool. After this, add a few drops of iodine there. If the composition turns blue, it means that starch has been added to the honey. This is fake honey.

7) Find out if there are other impurities in honey.
To do this, take a red-hot stainless steel wire (you can heat it in the flame of a lighter) and dip it in honey. If a sticky foreign mass hangs on it, you have fake honey, but if the wire remains clean, the honey is natural or, in other words, full-fledged.

8) What should you pay attention to when buying honey?
Honey, incl. and when sold, cannot be stored in metal containers, since the acids contained in its composition can cause oxidation. This will lead to an increase in the content of heavy metals in it and a decrease in useful substances. Such honey can cause discomfort in the stomach and even lead to poisoning.
Conscientious sellers store honey only in glass, clay, porcelain, ceramic and wooden containers. If you see that honey is sold from metal containers, immediately step aside.

9) How else can you distinguish a fake?

Add a little of what you bought under the guise of honey to a cup of weak, warm tea. If you were not deceived, the tea will darken, but no sediment will form at the bottom.

Over time, honey becomes cloudy and thickens (candied) - this is a sure sign of good quality. And not, as many people mistakenly believe, that the honey has gone bad.

Sometimes honey during storage is divided into two layers: it thickens only at the bottom, and remains liquid at the top. This indicates that it is unripe and should therefore be eaten as quickly as possible - unripe honey only lasts for a few months.

Careless beekeepers do not take bees out to collect nectar, but simply feed them sugar. Sugar honey is unnatural. There is nothing useful in it. This “sugar” honey is unnaturally white.

In real honey there is no free water - in mature honey, water (about 20%) is completely bound in a true saturated solution. Honey with sugar syrup has high humidity - this can be checked in the following way. Dip a piece of bread into honey, and after 8-10 minutes, take it out. High-quality honey will harden the bread. If, on the contrary, it has softened or completely spread out, then this is nothing more than sugar syrup.

But no one on the market will allow you to conduct such experiments, but they will let you try. Often honey is dripped onto a small piece of paper for tasting. This is quite enough to conduct another experiment. When going to the market to buy honey, take a chemical pencil with you. Smear the honey on a piece of paper with a pencil, you can smear it with your finger, and try writing something on the “honey” strip with a chemical pencil. If after a few seconds an inscription or blue streaks appear, you can confidently and loudly inform the seller (so that other customers can hear) that the product contains starch or flour. If you don't have a chemical pencil, a drop of iodine will do. The same blue tint of the proposed honey will unmistakably identify the starch and flour in the product.

10) Which honey is better - mountain honey or, let's say, lowland honey?
Don’t fall for the bait when they try to convince you that mountain honey is better than what bees collect in our open spaces. Mountain honey has no special advantages over plain honey. The quality of honey and the concentration of nutrients in it depend only on the decency and knowledge of the beekeeper, as well as on the environmental situation in the area where honey is collected. Here, however, there is a difference between honey collected in a clean environment and what bees collected from the flower beds of an industrial enterprise. But here too everything depends on the beekeeper. His conscience should not allow him to make money from “industrial” honey.

11) Honey sellers have several tricks designed for gullible buyers.
First, close your ears and don't listen to what they tell you. Check everything yourself. Of course, there may be one honest salesperson out of a bunch of liars, but how do you know that the one standing in front of you is honest? Try honey not only from the top, but also from the bottom of the jar. Feel free to put a spoon into the jar and don’t listen to the sellers who start shouting: “Don’t spoil the product!”
Unheated honey - both fresh transparent and candied - is an effective antiseptic, and a clean spoon in a jar cannot spoil it. It’s a different matter if it wasn’t honey at the bottom, or if the honey was previously heated, which led to the loss of its antiseptic and all other healing properties.

Do not buy unchecked or rolled honey from the market. It is a myth that honey is best stored with a tin lid. A simple screw-on or tight polyethylene lid is sufficient.

Crystallization (sugarification) is a natural process for honey that does not affect its quality and composition of nutrients. Don't be fooled by crystallized honey. Do not come the next day to the seller who promised you non-crystallized honey. They will bring the same thing, but warmed up. But under no circumstances should you heat honey, because... this turns it into a simple sweet substance, devoid of many beneficial properties!

12) Real honey has the following characteristics:

High-quality honey does not roll off the spoon too quickly. Take a tablespoon of honey and turn the spoon several times in a quick circular motion. The honey will roll over it, almost without draining into the jar.

Dip a spoon into the container with honey. When pulling out the spoon, evaluate the nature of the swelling of the honey. A good one will form a ribbon, sit in a mound, and bubbles will form on its surface.

All types of honey have a sweet taste, but some varieties have a specific taste. For example, tobacco, chestnut and willow varieties have a bitter taste, while heather is astringent. Any deviations in the taste of honey indicate its poor quality. Other flavor defects may be due to the presence of impurities. Excessive acidity may be associated with the onset of fermentation, the aroma of caramel is the result of heating, obvious bitterness is due to incorrect storage conditions of a low-quality product.

The color of honey depends solely on the variety. It can be all shades of brown and yellow. Do not be alarmed by the pale yellow, slightly cloudy honey - this is normal for acacia honey that has been standing for some time, because it candied very slowly and for a long time - sometimes completely only at the end of winter (but be sure to try it and determine for yourself by taste that it is acacia honey). Other types of uncandied honey are not characterized by turbidity, because the process of their sugaring (clouding and hardening) occurs quickly - it was just transparent and suddenly (2-4 weeks after the bribe - the period depends on the type of honey) it was all sugared at once.

Another very simple express check: you need to drop honey on paper and set it on fire. The paper around it burns, but real high-quality honey does not burn, melt or turn brown. If the honey begins to melt, it means the bees were fed sugar syrup, and if it turns brown, it means it was diluted with sugar.

ABOUT HONEY
Based on materials from the magazine "Science and Life"

1. SYNTHETIC HONEY, “HOT”, “CHEMICAL”, UNRIPED: HOW TO DETERMINE THE QUALITY OF HONEY

2. “HOney” SITUATION AT THE STATE LEVEL

In recent years, the average Russian consumes, according to various estimates, about 0.25-0.3 kilograms of honey per year, that is, approximately 150-200 times less than a century and a half ago. And the annual consumption of sugar in Russia is 41 kilograms per person per year. That is, in a sense, the average “sweetness” of life has not changed, the taste and benefits of this sweetness have changed. Moreover, even according to the standards of modern medicine (many times revised upward), sugar consumption in all products should not exceed 38 kilograms per person per year.

How are things going in other countries?

In Germany, for example, the average per capita honey consumption is 5 kg per person per year, that is, about 20 times more than in Russia, the average for the countries of the European Union is 3.5 kg, in Japan - 7 kg, in Saudi Arabia - up to 8 kg per year. In general, we are lagging behind. More precisely, we are catching up with developed countries at a good pace in terms of allergy sufferers per capita, but we are orders of magnitude behind in terms of the simplest and most natural methods of recovery. It is known that honey is a good preventative. By consuming pollen and enzymes from various plants in minute quantities with honey, the body maintains a healthy reaction to them throughout the year.

Among the reasons explaining the lower consumption of honey in Russia is, of course, its price. In terms of the retail price of honey, today's Russia has surpassed both Europe and the United States many times over. And this is despite the gigantic territories from which honey can be collected.

Commercial honey in Russia is now supplied to several regions, including the Krasnodar Territory. There you can often see the following picture: a large flowering field, and on the edge there is a trailer with hives in two or three rows (up to 36 hives on a trailer). This is what nomadic beekeeping looks like, which not only produces a lot of honey (several tons per trailer), but also significantly increases yields. It is known that the cost of additional crop production obtained through high-quality pollination by bees is 10-12 times higher than the cost of honey.

In rural areas of Germany, up to 70 bee colonies can be counted per square kilometer. What about in Russia? Here we are behind, and significantly. The federal law on beekeeping was discussed by deputies for a long time, but was never adopted.

With the traditional question “who is to blame?”

Most of us, when asked what types of honey he knows, will answer - linden, buckwheat, May, and maybe name a couple of other varieties. In fact, there are many more varieties of sweet treats, and learning to identify them is an art that is not accessible to every professional taster. Unfortunately, unscrupulous manufacturers take advantage of this and sell low-quality surrogates under the brand name of natural products. If you don’t want to fall for their bait, learn to navigate the variety of honey products. And we will help you.

A little about the classification of honey

Sweet, amber-transparent, viscous substance with a divine aroma. Honey is often compared to ambrosia, the legendary drink of the inhabitants of Ancient Greek Olympus. The source for its production is sweet flower nectar and honeydew, which go through a complex path from partial processing under the influence of special enzymes in the bee's crop to ripening in honeycombs.
Based on their botanical origin, the following types of honey are distinguished.

• Floral is a product obtained after processing flower nectar. If it is collected predominantly from one plant species, it is characterized as monofloral; if it is collected from different types, it is characterized as polyfloral. Monofloral honey is determined by the main honey plant (acacia, sweet clover, fireweed, etc.)
• Honeydew is a derivative of honeydew or honeydew, a sweet juice secreted by the green parts of the plant. Compared to flower honey, it is a product of lower (technical) quality.
• Mixed - a natural mixture of the first and second directly in the honeycomb.
• Blended is also a mixture, but made by people, to equalize certain parameters of natural honey.

A bee cannot be programmed to collect nectar from any one flower; it does not care whether it is a linden tree or a dandelion. To obtain monofloral honey, you need a large array of a specific flowering plant (buckwheat field, linden grove). This does not mean that the addition of nectar from other plants is completely excluded, but the main flower will prevail.

When, for one reason or another, there is little flower nectar (rainy summer or, conversely, drought), bees are forced to collect the sweet juice secreted by the leaves and stems of plants. The admixture of honeydew honey increases in the flower product.

Among the polyfloral types of honey from the so-called forbs, there are:

• forest;
• mountain;
• meadow (field).

Forest honey contains a high percentage of nectar from flowers of trees (conifers, linden, maple), raspberries, oregano and other forest inhabitants. In the mountains there is a lot of acacia, chestnut, and subalpine herbs. Fireweed, bruise, sage, sweet clover, St. John's wort are the basis of meadow (steppe) honeys.

When classifying a sweet product, attention is often paid to the geographic location of the beekeeping farm. Knowing this, you can navigate the main honey plants growing in a particular area and determine how ecologically clean the region is. In demand among Russians:

• Bashkir honey. Linden, forest raspberries, fireweed (fireweed), thyme, oregano, and meadow herbs grow here in large tracts. There are many varieties of products coming from here. Ecologically, the region is prosperous.
• Altaic. The region is synonymous with pristine nature, ecological purity, and rich plant diversity. Forest and mountain honey is supplied from here, including the famous fireweed, angelica, and taiga honey.
• Caucasian. Mountain honey based on acacia, chestnut and subalpine herbs is famous for its healing properties.
• Far Eastern honey has an unusual delicate taste. It is based on the nectar of Amur and Manchurian linden, Amur velvet, raspberry, lilac, and hawthorn.

Brief characteristics of 12 popular varieties of honey

What determines the popularity of certain types of honey? In fact, there are not many criteria. Taste and aroma play a decisive role for gourmets who consume sweets often and with pleasure, replacing sugar with it. Medicinal properties are important if honey is used for therapeutic purposes, as an ingredient in medicinal formulations. Price plays an important role - inexpensive and high-quality varieties are sold out even faster than rare, elite honeys.
Taking into account the above, we compiled this popularity rating. When specifying the region, we meant the area of ​​mass distribution of the honey plant, its natural thickets, which make it possible to collect nectar in large quantities. This does not exclude the cultivation of honey plants in other regions.

Acacia

Thickets of acacia and sophora (a closely related plant) are found en masse in the south of Russia, in the Caucasus mountains.

The product is recognizable by its liquid, transparent consistency, not prone to crystallization. Pure acacia honey may not set for several years, but when frozen, it forms a white or golden-yellow fine-grained mass.

The taste is light, not cloying, with a subtle floral aftertaste and aroma. The undoubted advantage of this type of honey is that it does not cause allergies and is recommended to be given even to small children.

Lime

One of the most common species, as linden tracts are found throughout Russia.

The color is light, translucent, after standing a little, it acquires an amber-yellow hue. It is a bit reminiscent of acacia honey, especially when it hardens, but unlike it it crystallizes quickly.

Its taste is soft, but pronounced; at the very beginning, you sometimes feel a slight bitterness, which smoothly turns into sweetness. It smells like linden (or does linden smell like honey?), which in turn helps to easily distinguish a fake. It is famous for its anti-cold and bactericidal properties.

Buckwheat

Produced everywhere where buckwheat is sown. Pure buckwheat honey comes in large quantities from beekeeping farms in Altai, central Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

Belongs to dark varieties, in appearance – dark brown with a reddish tint. Crystallizing, it brightens, acquiring a dark yellow tint and a coarse-grained structure.

It has a recognizable, rich taste with pungent notes and a pleasant bitterness in the aftertaste. Thanks to its unique aroma, it is excellent in baking. It is considered one of the best in terms of healing. The authenticity of buckwheat honey can be easily determined by a sore throat.

May

This is the name given to the earliest spring honey of the first pumping. It is produced everywhere from early flowering honey plants - fruit trees, primroses, acacia, hawthorn, peonies. A sort of hodgepodge in which it is difficult to identify the predominant plant.

The color is translucent, has a rather liquid consistency, but it should not flow like water - this is a sign of products that have not ripened in honeycombs, which may ferment over time.

The taste is very sweet, even slightly cloying, with a neutral odor. In comparison with later varieties, it is not as rich, but it is credited with a lot of useful properties precisely because it is the first.

Donnikovy

This is one of the varieties of white honey, the best combination of excellent delicate taste and medicinal properties (in the USA, for example, it is considered the standard). Pure sweet clover honey is collected in Altai and Buryatia.

Fresh honey is light amber in color, frozen honey is white. The color may have shades depending on the admixtures of nectar from other plants.

The taste is sweet, with a slight bitterness and vanilla aroma in the aftertaste. It has pronounced analgesic properties, indispensable for insomnia.

Diaghilev

It is a rare variety, especially valuable for its medicinal properties. Pure angelica honey is more often found in the northern regions, where thickets of the medicinal plant are spread over vast areas.

The color is dark brown with a reddish-amber tint. It sets slowly, acquiring a fine-grained “greasy” consistency and ductility.

It has a rich taste with a slight bitterness and a caramel aftertaste.

Floral (from forbs)

It is also called meadow or field, since there is no prevailing honey plant in it, but there is nectar from many plants that bloom at approximately the same time, for example, oregano, thyme, St. John's wort, plantain, sage. Produced everywhere.

The mixture includes herbs, which in their pure form serve as the basis for both dark and white varieties of honey. When mixed, they acquire a golden yellow color, more light than dark. Honey from herbs crystallizes slowly, forming a thick elastic mass.

The polyfloral composition also determines the taste - pleasant, rich, often with clearly perceptible fruit or herbal notes, but rather heavy, incomparable with linden or acacia honey. The taste largely depends on which flower nectar was collected more.

Sunflower

Believe it or not, this variety is one of the top sellers on the honey market. Firstly, due to the availability of honey plants, it is widespread, and secondly, it stands out due to its affordable price.

Like honey plant, the product made from it is characterized by a beautiful golden-yellow color, which after crystallization darkens slightly, acquiring an amber, sometimes slightly greenish tint.

Pure sunflower honey has a pleasant taste with tart notes and a fruity trail. You can recognize quality products by a slight sore throat.

Fireweed

Another type of white honey from a plant common in Bashkiria, Altai, central Russia, and Belarus.

Immediately after pumping it has a light yellow, sometimes with a greenish tint. It shrinks quickly, forming a creamy-white elastic mass, reminiscent of cream in thickness. Crystallizes unevenly, forming clots.

It is characterized by a delicate consistency and soft, delicate taste, for which it is even called “childish”.

Heather

Not the highest quality, but an inexpensive variety of beekeeping products. Heather thickets are found in Belarus and the Carpathians.

The color of heather honey ranges from dark yellow to red-brown. When hardened, it forms a jelly-like mass; after stirring, it regains its liquid consistency.

The taste will appeal to lovers of bitter varieties with noticeable tart notes.

Sainfoin

A rather rare and valuable variety in its pure form is produced in Siberia from the plant of the same name in the legume family.

When fresh, it is very light, translucent with a greenish tint. Doesn't crystallize for a long time. The shrunken mass has a creamy consistency and a fine-grained structure.

Sainfoin honey tastes pleasant, fragrant, with herbal notes and a subtle rose aroma. The pollen that gets into the honeycombs along with the nectar gives the product additional value - it enhances its medicinal properties.

Phacelia

The main supply region is Siberia and the Caucasus, where the plant is cultivated as a honey plant and can bloom up to 4 times a year.

Externally, phacelia honey is very light, transparent yellow, crystallizing, it becomes almost white with a greenish tint, and the consistency is similar to soft elastic dough. In its fresh form, if you don’t know, it can be confused with its acacia or linden counterpart.

Thanks to a large amount of fructose, the product has a sweet and spicy taste with light tart notes and an intoxicating aroma.

Every man to his own taste

Experienced beekeepers note that the best varieties of honey are different for everyone. When choosing a treat, we are guided by our own taste preferences, and our body subconsciously strives for what it lacks.

When giving a tasting assessment, they take into account the taste, color, aroma, and consistency of the product. Taken together, these characteristics lead:

• herbal honey;
• lime;
• acacia;
• melilot;
• hyssop;
• clover;
• lavender;
• crimson;
• mint;
• phacelia;
• sainfoin.

Some especially value honey that retains a liquid consistency for a long time. This is important if the product is primarily used for baking or other culinary purposes. Examples of such varieties are acacia, angelica, chestnut, heather, alfalfa, and most honeydew varieties.

Sweet delicacy color scheme

The honey palette is surprisingly extensive and depends on the pigments and minerals that enter it along with nectar and pollen. The main color is amber yellow, translucent. But there are varieties, both very dark and light, which when frozen resemble white lard or cream. It has been proven that color is not related to taste - there are many first-class products among white varieties, and, for example, dark amber chestnut, heather honey is considered low-grade.
The most valuable types of white or almost white honey:

• acacia;
• melilot;
• fireweed;
• clover;
• crimson.

Some less valuable varieties of honey products obtained from the nectar of rapeseed, rapeseed, alfalfa, and cotton also acquire a white consistency.

The most common dark varieties are:

• buckwheat;
• taiga (coniferous);
• chestnut;
• angelica:
• hyssop honey

Dark varieties of the product are considered less tasty, but they are often more flavorful and healthy. They contain more iron and other trace elements, proteins, amino acids, and plant pigments.

Beneficial properties of different types of honey

Now we will say a seditious thing - it is impossible to determine which type of honey is the healthiest. A real natural product, no matter what plant nectar it is obtained from, has a similar composition.

It consists of 75% carbohydrates (glucose, fructose and sucrose), a small amount of proteins and starch breakdown products, organic acids, microelements, and vitamins. Experts believe that the usefulness of honey is determined by enzymes that are secreted by the bee while the nectar is in its crop. The longer he stays there (20 minutes or more), the better. That is why, the further a bee flies for nectar, the more healing the honey is.

The value of honey is due to its chemical composition, which is very similar to blood plasma. It contains magnesium, iron, sulfur, phosphorus, chlorine, and potassium in almost the same concentration as blood. It is no coincidence that this is almost the only product that is absorbed by 97%, and is absorbed immediately, without the need for breakdown with the help of digestive enzymes.

Among the variety of types of honey, those collected from medicinal plants are considered more healing, since biologically active substances enter them with nectar. And also with additives of other beekeeping products. So, the healthiest honey.

1. Cell phone. Natural packaging allows you to preserve a maximum of useful components, including propolis and pollen, deposited on the walls of the honeycomb. These substances help strengthen the immune system and the body as a whole. Chewing honeycombs is very useful for teeth, gums, and disinfection of the oral cavity.
2. With pollen. Incredibly useful for children, as it contains growth factors, affecting the endocrine system. Normalizes metabolism, stimulates the release of bile and other digestive enzymes. Helps cleanse blood vessels from low-density cholesterol.
3. Pine (taiga). Indicated for people with asthma, chronic bronchitis, and those who tend to catch colds often. It restores ability to work well and saves from chronic fatigue.
4. Mustard. An ideal treat for colds and viral infections. Has choleretic properties.
5. Nardek. Watermelon honey is the best helper in the fight against flu, bronchitis, and throat problems. Suitable for heart patients, it will help clean blood vessels and increase hemoglobin.
6. With propolis. The slight bitterness that propolis gives to honey helps cope with ARVI and influenza, promotes tissue healing and cleanses the body at the cellular level.
7. Uterine. Honey contains royal jelly, a substance consisting of 400 biologically active components. With the help of a useful product, they strengthen the immune system and normalize blood pressure, protect against stress and stimulate metabolism.
8. Zabrusny. This is the name given to scarce honey with caps that bees use to cover the honeycombs. They contain natural wax, propolis, pollen. The product is characterized by antibacterial, cleansing, and preventive properties.
9. On-board or wild bee honey. Contains propolis, royal jelly, bee bread, wax, very seasoned and healthy. Recommended for cleansing the body of toxins, improving the liver and gastrointestinal tract.
10. Black maple. Rare honey from the Tatar maple, an analogue of the May vitamin product. Indicated for pregnant women as an antiemetic.

The list of useful types of honey goes on - linden and buckwheat, bird cherry, almond, fig, cedar... Enjoy the sweet treat and be healthy!

Many lovers of beekeeping products prefer light varieties of honey: they know well what plants they are obtained from. Do you know this?

Do you know that honey can be dark or light? In fact, you have probably seen a wide variety of honey varieties at special fairs and can imagine the variety of colors of this product.

However, it’s not just the color that makes a similar product different. We can also talk about the peculiarities of the healing properties of various types of bee substance.

And the use of this substance, in turn, is based on the healing properties. And the reason for such differences is largely the plant from whose pollen one or another type of honey is obtained.

Light varieties of sweet bee substance also include honey obtained from wild raspberries. Like raspberry jam, this substance is an excellent medicinal and prophylactic agent that helps fight colds and strengthen the immune system.

Of course, light color is far from a complete definition by which you can find out which specific variety is in front of you. The fact is that such a substance can be very light, for example, like acacia honey, or it can be, for example, light brown, like buckwheat honey.

Light varieties often include the so-called polyfloral varieties of sweet bee substance. What is it?

Such varieties are collected on the basis of pollen of not one, but several species of flowering plants. They are also known as a forb variant of the crop collected by winged apiary workers.

As a rule, they can be recognized by their appearance, because there is not such a wide range of colors. Typically, these options range from light to dark yellow.

As is known, forbs can gather in different areas. The biogeographic communities that can serve as sources of flowering plants for collecting pollen for the sweet harvest of the apiary include:

• forest lands;
• meadows;
• fields.

Light options include those types that are obtained from plants such as linden and acacia. These are very good natural medicines.

And, of course, these are far from the only plants that can produce non-dark versions of this sweet and tasty bee substance. For example, these include boudyakov and sweet clover options.

For example, the budyakov type has a beautiful light amber color, although there are other options: colorless and greenish shades. It also rightfully belongs to the high-class varieties in terms of its taste and healing qualities. Source of raw materials to obtain it is budjak: a thistle that differs from others in the following features:

• crimson flowers;
• grayish leaves;
• prickly stems.

The freshly picked sweet clover variety can also vary from light amber to greenish in color and may also be whitish. During the crystallization process, it acquires a light apple color.

Non-dark varieties include sweet bee harvest, obtained by collecting pollen from sunflower flowers. It can be the following color:

• golden yellow;
• amber;
• golden.

This type of sweet bee substance is extremely sweet. It has a rather tart taste and also has a pleasant, subtle aroma.

This type is also susceptible crystallization processes. Often this happens even while being in the combs in the hive.

Non-dark types also include fruit, phacelia and cotton varieties. All of them quite quickly and easily undergo crystallization processes, changing their original color.

Linden

One of the plants from whose pollen honey is produced is linden. This woody plant belongs to the forest honey plants.

The color of this substance can vary: from a greenish-amber hue when you are dealing with a freshly harvested crop, to a whitish hue when it has undergone crystallization processes.

This variety can also be considered one of the best options if you are faced with a choice of which variety of sweet bee substance you prefer.

Linden is rightfully considered a kind of queen among honey plants: the fact is that it has excellent qualities for obtaining pollen as a raw material for the further production of popular beekeeping products.

If the bees have chosen this plant for pollination, then you can be sure that you will not be left without a rich harvest. As a rule, from such a tree, a bee colony, under favorable climatic conditions, brings from 3 kilograms of sweet harvest.

There may be individual records when the given figure is significantly exceeded. Weather conditions favorable for pollen collection are warm and windless days.

In terms of their composition, such beekeeping products contain about 36-37 percent glucose and about 39-40 percent levulose. This variety is considered one of the most useful in terms of its medicinal qualities.

Along with the raspberry version, this variety is excellent for helping with colds and infectious diseases. Its use significantly strengthens the human immune system and increases the body's resistance to various infections. It has high qualities for removing sweat, which removes all bad viruses and microorganisms.

If you are going to purchase such a natural medicine and delicious delicacy, then it will be quite easy for you to recognize it among others. The fact is that it has a sharp aroma, similar to the smell of linden trees themselves. At the same time, it tastes very pleasant, without bitterness.

Unfortunately, this variety, as a rule, undergoes crystallization processes quite quickly. In fact, this is not a very favorable process, but even after being subjected to it, this natural medicine does not lose its beneficial qualities.

However, when crystallized, this sweet substance changes its color and consistency. Being yellow or greenish when freshly picked, it turns into a whitish substance.

From the liquid state it becomes covered with medium grains. It should be noted that crystallization processes do not affect this sweet bee substance very much.

White acacia

Honey is also made from pollen from white acacia flowers. In addition, winged apiary workers often collect nectar from yellow acacia flowers.

The acacia variety of sweet bee substance differs from others in its very light color.

And if such a variety undergoes crystallization processes, its color will become completely white.

This sweet bee substance is believed to be one of its best varieties. It has a very delicate aroma and taste, and also has excellent healing properties. If we talk in detail about its composition, it usually contains about 35-36 percent glucose and about 40 percent fructose. It is quite liquid and has a medium grain size.

Raspberries

Honey can even be raspberry. And this is one of the most healing varieties of this amazing natural remedy, obtained thanks to the efforts of hardworking bees.

First of all, this variety helps people suffering from colds. If you have symptoms of respiratory diseases, then this strain will help you overcome them.

In addition, such a natural remedy can be used for preventive purposes. For example, to strengthen the immune system. The fact is that raspberry honey contains a large amount of vitamin C.

Linden, raspberry, white acacia - all these plants are used to produce light varieties of honey. However, color is not the only characteristic of this beekeeping product.

The variety obtained from each of the above plants may differ in taste. The healing properties of this substance also differ, which, in turn, determine the scope of application of this natural medicine.