What are honey to bees?

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The Biology of PollinationA Bee's Dinner PlateBees Fill American Dinner PlatesMany Workers, Several Drones, and One Queen BeeHoney Bee Hives and Bee BroodAmerican Foulbrood - A Foul DiseaseControlling American FoulbroodRecent Regulatory ChangesA Perilous FutureFor More InformationReferencesEndnotes

Honey bees are big money makers for U.S. agriculture. These social and hardworking insects produce six hive products – honey, pollen, royal jelly, beeswax, propolis, and venom – all collected and used by people for various nutritional and medicinal purposes.

Honey, of course, is the most well-known and economically important hive product. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agriculture Statistics Service, honey bees made 157 million pounds of honey in 2019. With the cost of honey at $1.97 per pound, that’s a value of a little over $339 million.

After honey, beeswax is the second most important hive product from an economic standpoint. The beeswax trade dates to ancient Greece and Rome, and in Medieval Europe, the substance was a unit of trade for taxes and other purposes. The market remains strong today. Beeswax is popular for making candles and as an ingredient in artists’ materials and in leather and wood polishes. The pharmaceutical industry uses the substance as a binding agent, time-release mechanism, and drug carrier. Beeswax is also one of the most commonly used waxes in cosmetics. The U.S. is a major producer of raw beeswax, as well as a worldwide supplier of refined beeswax.

But the greatest importance of honey bees to agriculture isn’t a product of the hive at all. It’s their work as crop pollinators. This agricultural benefit of honey bees is estimated to be between 10 and 20 times the total value of honey and beeswax. In fact, bee pollination accounts for about $15 billion in added crop value. Honey bees are like flying dollar bills buzzing over U.S. crops.

Unfortunately, a widespread bacterial disease called American foulbrood is destroying entire colonies of honey bees. But fortunately for the honey bees and the many crops that depend on them for pollination, FDA has approved three antibiotics to control this devastating honey bee disease.

Pollination is vital to the approximately 250,000 species of flowering plants that depend on the transfer of pollen from flower anther to stigma to reproduce. The anther is the top-most part of the stamen, the flower’s male reproductive portion. Normally made up of four pollen sacs, the anther produces and releases pollen. The stigma, the top of the flower’s female reproductive part, is covered in a sticky substance that catches and traps the pollen grains.

Depending on the specific plant species, the transfer of pollen from anther to stigma is achieved by wind, gravity, water, birds, bats, or insects. Some plants, such as pine trees and corn, produce light pollen that’s easily blown by wind. Other plants make heavy, sticky pollen that’s not easily blown from flower to flower. These plants rely on other agents, insects for example, to transfer the pollen.

Upon entering a flower, an insect such as a honey bee, brushes against the pollen on the outside of the anther and carries it to the stigma. Sometimes, the pollen grains only need to reach the stigma of the same flower or another flower on the same plant. But often, the pollen must travel to the stigma of a flower on a different plant (but same plant species).

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Honey bees are vegetarians. Nectar and pollen collected from flowering plants are the entrees on their dinner plates. Bees harvest the nectar and convert the sugary liquid to honey, the insects’ primary source of carbohydrates. Honey provides the bees with the energy for flight, colony maintenance, and general daily activities.

Pollen, often called “bee bread,” is the bees’ main source of protein. Pollen also provides the bees with fatty acids, minerals, and vitamins. The protein in pollen is necessary for hive growth and young bee development.

Depending on the season, weather, and availability of nectar- and pollen-bearing blossoms, the size of a honey bee colony varies from 10,000 to 100,000 bees. A typical size colony, made up of about 20,000 bees, collects about 125 pounds of pollen per year.1 Bees carry the pollen in specialized structures on their hind legs called “pollen baskets,” or corbiculae (meaning “little baskets” in Latin). A honey bee can bring back to the colony a pollen load that weighs about 35 percent of its body weight.

In a single day, one worker bee makes 12 or more trips from the hive, visiting several thousand flowers. On these foraging trips, the bee can travel as far as two to five miles from the hive. Although honey bees collect pollen from a variety of flowers, a bee limits itself to one plant species per trip, gathering one kind of pollen.

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Honey bees are not native to the New World. Most crops grown in the U.S. aren’t New World natives either. Both the crops and the bees evolved together in other areas of the globe, and were brought here by European settlers. Information suggests that the first honey bee colonies arrived in the Colony of Virginia from England early in 1622.

Today, the commercial production of more than 90 crops relies on bee pollination. Of the approximately 3,600 bee species that live in the U.S., the European honey bee2 (scientific name Apis mellifera) is the most common pollinator, making it the most important bee to domestic agriculture. About one-third of the food eaten by Americans comes from crops pollinated by honey bees, including apples, melons, cranberries, pumpkins, squash, broccoli, and almonds, to name just a few. Without the industrious honey bee, American dinner plates would look quite bare.

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A honey bee colony is a highly organized society made up of three kinds of adult bees – workers, drones, and a single queen – each with specific roles. Worker bees are sexually undeveloped females and under normal hive conditions don’t lay eggs. As suggested by their name, worker bees are the hive’s laborers, performing all the tasks needed to maintain and protect the colony and rear the young bees. Despite being the smallest physically, they are by far the largest in number, making up nearly all the bees in a colony. A worker bee’s life span ranges from six weeks in the busy summer to four to nine months during the winter.

Drones are male bees that are on standby for mating with a virgin queen, should the need arise. For the drones, death instantly follows mating. They number from a few to several thousand and are usually present only during late spring and summer.

As the lone sexually developed female in the colony, the queen’s only function is to lay eggs. She mates only once with several drones and remains fertile for life. The queen can live for several years, with an average productive life span of two to three years. When she dies or her productivity declines, worker bees raise a new queen.

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Derived from the Latin word apis meaning “bee,” apiculture is the raising and caring of honey bee colonies by people. Beekeepers, or apiarists, house their domesticated honey bee colonies in man-made hives kept in an apiary, or “bee yard.”

The basic structural component of the hive is a wax comb suspended within a plastic or wooden frame. Worker bees construct the comb using beeswax, a substance produced by four pairs of glands located on the underside of their abdomens. These eight special glands convert sugar from honey into the waxy substance and secrete it as a liquid, which hardens into flat wax scales once exposed to air. Using spines located on their middle legs, the bees remove the wax scales from their abdomens. The bees transfer the scales to their mouthparts, and while chewing the wax, they add salivary secretions to soften it. The bees then use the now pliable wax to build the hexagon-shaped cells of the comb.

Within the six-sided cells of the wax comb, the bees store honey and pollen and rear the bee brood, a collective term encompassing the three developmental stages of bees – egg, larval, and pupal. In the first stage, the queen deposits one egg in each cell. At peak production in spring and early summer, she may lay up to 1,500 eggs3 per day. Fertilized eggs develop into female worker bees. Unfertilized eggs become male drones.

The egg hatches in three days to become a larva, a legless white grub. Sometimes called the feeding stage, the larval stage is one of rapid growth. While still inside its beeswax cell, the larva is fed by nurse worker bees. When the larva is a few days old, worker bees cap the cell with a beeswax cover. A healthy larva is plump and pearly white with a glistening appearance.

During the pupal, or transformation, stage, the grub-like larva changes into an adult bee. This metamorphosis occurs within the capped cell. A healthy pupa remains white and glistening during the early period of development, even though it’s beginning to take on adult features. Depending on the kind of bee (worker, drone, or queen), it emerges from the cell 7½ to 14½ days after capping.

Beekeepers can assess the health of the bee brood by looking at brood patterns. The pattern of healthy capped worker brood is solid and compact with few empty cells. The cell cappings are medium brown and convex, with no punctures. Drone brood is normally in patches around the comb’s margins.

Unfortunately, healthy brood patterns are becoming less common. Faced with several threats, honey bee populations in the U.S. are declining. These threats include parasites like the Varroa mite, pesticide exposure, Colony Collapse Disorder, and bacterial diseases such as American foulbrood.

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When beekeepers utter the three-letter acronym “AFB,” they’re not referring to the closest air force base. Rather, they’re talking about American foulbrood, a serious infectious disease of honey bees. Caused by the spore-forming bacteria Paenibacillus larvae4 and found worldwide, AFB is one of the most widespread diseases affecting honey bee brood, and the most destructive. The disease does not pose any health risks to people, but it wreaks havoc among bees. Severe outbreaks can weaken or kill entire colonies.

American foulbrood affects the larval and pupal stages of brood development, leaving adult bees safe from infection. Young larvae may die quickly when they are curled at the base of their uncapped cells. Worker bees remove these dead larvae, leaving empty cells. Most often, death occurs after the cell has been capped. By this time, the older larvae or young pupae have stretched out lengthwise and are upright, filling most of their cell.

The capping of a cell that contains a diseased larva is moist and dark. As the larva shrinks, the capping is drawn into the mouth of the cell, causing the normally convex capping to become concave. When they find an infected larva in a sealed cell, worker bees puncture the sunken capping and remove it, along with the sick or dead larva.

If death occurs in the pupal stage, the dead pupa’s threadlike proboscis, or tongue, protrudes from the pupal head and extends across the cell. A protruding tongue can be seen even after the rest of the pupa’s body has decayed. Though rarely seen, the formation of the pupal tongue is one of the most characteristic signs of American foulbrood.

At death, the normally pearly white and glistening bee brood changes to a dull white. The color gradually darkens to light creamy brown, then coffee brown, and finally dark brown or almost black. The consistency of the decaying brood is soft and glutinous. One symptom of American foulbrood seen only in decayed brood is “ropiness.” When a probe is inserted into the body of a decayed larva and withdrawn gently and slowly, the glue-like larval remains will adhere to the tip of the probe and can be pulled out of the cell as a stringy, brown mass or rope. This technique used by beekeepers to assess ropiness is called the “match-stick” or “stretch” test. It’s probably the best-known way to diagnosis AFB in the field. In some cases, however, the larval remains are rather watery, causing a negative test result.

One month or more after the larva becomes ropy, its remains dry out and shrivel to form hard, dark brown to black scales. These characteristic scales are brittle, stick tightly to the lower sides of the cell, and contain billions of spores that spread easily. The bacteria can produce over one billion spores in each infected larva. Only the spores are pathogenic (disease-causing), and unfortunately, they are very resistant to heat and chemicals. The spores of P. larvae can survive for many years in the dry scales, as well as in honey, beeswax, and hive equipment.

Nurse worker bees transmit American foulbrood by feeding spore-laden honey or bee bread to young larvae. Larvae can also become infected by P. larvae spores remaining at the base of their cells. “House” worker bees spread the spores throughout the hive when they clean out the cells of dead larvae.

The disease spreads quickly to other colonies in the apiary by:

A colony infected with American foulbrood has a patchy brood pattern. This irregular, mottled appearance is due to the mixture of healthy, diseased, and empty brood cells within the same wax comb. The healthy cells have slightly protruding and fully closed cappings. The diseased cells may be uncapped and contain larval remains, or still be sealed but have sunken and punctured cappings. The empty cells are a result of worker bees chewing away the cappings of diseased cells and removing the dead larvae. The brood pattern is also patchy because the larval remains vary from the initial state of moist ropiness to the final state of dry scales adhered to the lower sides of open cells. A patchy brood pattern alerts the beekeeper that the colony is unhealthy, and while not diagnostic for American foulbrood, it raises the suspicion for this disease.

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The traditional control measure for American foulbrood is to kill all bees in an infected colony and then burn the dead bees and hive materials belonging to the colony. Destroying the wax comb is critical because, apart from the bees, combs are the main carriers of P. larvae spores. Burning entire honey bee colonies and their hive materials is expensive, especially considering the high cost of beekeeping equipment.

Instead of killing and burning their bee colonies, beekeepers can turn to their veterinarian for help to control American foulbrood with antibiotics. While the antibiotics don’t kill the spores, they do prevent the bacteria from multiplying. A veterinarian’s supervision is required for administering antibiotics to bee colonies infected with AFB.

For decades, oxytetracyline was the only FDA-approved antibiotic to control American foulbrood. In October 2005, FDA approved a second antibiotic, tylosin tartrate, to control the disease. The approval was due in large part to the work of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's bee research laboratories (which are part of USDA’s Agricultural Research Service) and the NRSP-7 program run by USDA.

Approved in March 2012, the most recent antibiotic to be added to the arsenal against American foulbrood is lincomycin hydrochloride. Studies to support the drug’s approval were done by two of USDA's bee research laboratories - one in Maryland and one in Texas - in cooperation with the NRSP-7 program.

The labeling for each product approved to treat AFB in honey bees includes specific directions for how to mix and administer the drug to bee colonies. In general, the antibiotic is mixed with a certain amount of sugar or confectioners/powdered sugar and then fed as a sugar solution or dusted onto the hive. Beekeepers should discuss the details of treatment with their veterinarian. The bees consume the sugar-antibiotic mixture and the nurse worker bees pass the drug to the larvae during feeding. The drug is given in the spring or fall before the main honey flow begins to avoid contamination of production honey. Depending on the specific antibiotic used, the treatment should be completed at least 4-6 weeks before the start of the main honey flow.

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In the past, beekeepers could treat their bee colonies with antibiotics to control American foulbrood without a veterinarian’s supervision because the drugs used to be available over-the-counter. However, as of January 1, 2017, beekeepers must involve their veterinarian because the drugs are now available only by or on the order of a licensed veterinarian.

This regulatory change to require a veterinarian’s supervision is an important piece of FDA’s overall strategy to promote the judicious use of antibiotics in food-producing animals in an effort to reduce antibiotic resistance. (Antibiotic resistance occurs after bacteria are exposed to an antibiotic and then become resistant to the drug’s effects. This means that the antibiotic, and similar antibiotics, will no longer work against those bacteria.)

FDA classifies oxytetracycline, tylosin tartrate, and lincomycin hydrochloride—the three antibiotics approved to control American foulbrood—as medically important antibiotics because they are used to treat diseases in people. The agency also classifies honey bees as a food-producing animal because people consume the hive products. Veterinary oversight is now required to administer medically important antibiotics in the food or water of food-producing animals. Beekeepers must involve their veterinarian before using oxytetracycline, tylosin tartrate, or lincomycin hydrochloride in their bee colonies.

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Honey bees are indispensable to U.S. agriculture, yet their future and the future of the dependent agricultural economies are perilous. The apiculture industry continues to battle multiple threats to the health and number of honey bee colonies. With three FDA-approved antibiotics available to control American foulbrood, beekeepers will hopefully lose fewer bees to this disease.

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Bogdanov S. Bee-Hexagon.

National Agricultural Statistics Service, Agricultural Statistics Board, USDA. Honey. Released March 19, 2020.

CBI (Centre for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries) Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. Promising EU export markets for vegetable oils, fats and waxes for cosmetics. June 2011.

Sanford MT. Protecting Honey Bees From Pesticides. Entomology and Nematology Department, Florida Cooperative Extension, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. Publication #CIR534. Original publication date April 25, 1993. Revised May 2003.

Flores A. Improving Honey Bee Health. Agricultural Research. February 2008.

Forest Service, USDA. What is Pollination?

Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium (MAAREC). Pollination. MAAREC Publication 5.2. February 2000.

Ellis A, Ellis J, O’Malley M, et al. The Benefits of Pollen to Honey Bees. Entomology and Nematology Department, Florida Cooperative Extension, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. Publication #ENY152 (IN868). Original publication date September 2010.

Back Yard Beekeepers Association. About Honeybees.

MAAREC. Bees Are Beneficial. MAAREC Publication 1.1. February 2000.

MAAREC. The Value of Honey Bees in the Mid-Atlantic Region.

Hackett KJ. Bee Benefits to Agriculture, in Forum. Agricultural Research. March 2004.

Oertel E. History of Beekeeping in the United States. Beekeeping in the United States, Agriculture Handbook Number 335; pp. 2-9. Revised October 1980.

The Pollinating Insects – Biology, Management and Systematics Research Unit, Agricultural Research Service, USDA. Research Strategy.

The University of Arizona Africanized Honey Bee Education Project. Africanized Honey Bees on the Move Lesson Plans.

MAAREC. Beekeeping equipment.

MAAREC. The Colony and Its Organization.

Flores A. Helping Beekeepers Beat American Foulbrood. Agricultural Research. July 2007.

Bee Research Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, USDA. American Foulbrood Disease.

Feldlaufer MF. Honey Bees Get a New Antibiotic, in Science Update. Agricultural Research. July 2006.

World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).  American foulbrood of honey bees (Infection of honey bees with Paenibacillus larvae). OIE Terrestrial Manual 2016; Chapter 2.2.2. May 2016.

Ritter W and Akratanakul P. Honey bee diseases and pests: a practical guide, 2006. FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) Agricultural and Food Engineering Technical Report 4. ISSN 1814-1137. November 2006.

MAAREC. Bee Diseases & Their Control. MAAREC Publication 4.9. Revised November 2005.

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1The number of bees in a typical size honey bee colony and the amount of pollen a colony collects per year vary between references. The source for this sentence is The Benefits of Pollen to Honey Bees   by Ellis A, Ellis J, O’Malley M, et al. Entomology and Nematology Department, Florida Cooperative Extension, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. Publication #ENY152. Original publication date September 2010.

2The European honey bee is also called the common or western honey bee.

3The number of eggs a queen can lay in one day varies between references. The source for this sentence is the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extensive Consortium (MAAREC) Web page, The Colony and Its Organization.

4Originally classified in the genus Bacillus, Paenibacillus was reclassified as a separate genus in 1993.

But for now, why not read on...

Well imagine this. You're stuck in your home, and the weather is so bad, that you're unable to go out and get food, and even if you could go out for food, there wouldn't be much around anyway!

That's what it's like for honey bees in winter.  Whilst they may be able to forage on a dry, cold day, it's unlikely there will be many flowers for them to forage on.

For this reason, they collect nectar when flowers are blooming, and turn it into honey which can be stored to provide them with nutrition through the winter months when there are fewer flowers.

It's a good idea to include plants and shrubs in your garden that flower early, so that honey bees will be able to feed in cold, dry weather.  Below is a photograph of a honey bee worker foraging on a winter flowering shrub called Daphne 'Jacqueline Postill'.  The photograph was taken on a very cold day, and this shrub flowers from the end of January, so there were many hungry honey bees feeding on it.

Assuming there is plenty of food available for the bees from plant and tree blossoms, and assuming the weather is okay for the honey bees to venture out, then hopefully there is plenty of honey so that it's alright for humans to take some of it.

Remember that in the wild, predation is natural.  Mammals (such as the honey badger), other insects (such as wasps, hornets, and even other bees), and sometimes birds (often with the help of another predator) will steal some of the honey from honey bee nests!

Skilled beekeepers have a good idea about how much honey they can take without harming a colony.

The honey you are familiar with, is made by honey bees.  Bumble bees don't make honey, instead, they have little pots of nectar.  You can read more about this 'do bumble bees make honey' here. For bumble bees, it's more a case of storing nectar for a short time period, because bumble bee colonies do not last as long as honey bee colonies do.

Honey bee colonies have to feed a colony of workers plus the queen through the winter.  With bumble bees, only the queen survives, and the rest of the colony will die.

However, there is another type of bee, referred to as the Melipona, which is a genus of stingless bees, and which makes a type of honey in small quantities, but this type of honey is not widely available.It's always worth remembering.....Whenever honey bees visit flowers to gather nectar with which to make honey, they pollinate flowers.  Read about plant pollination.Did you know?Not all honey is made from nectar gathered from flowers.  For example, honeydew honey is sort of made from aphid (and other bug) poop!

- Wright GA, Nicolson SW, Shafir S. Nutritional Physiology and Ecology of Honey Bees. Annu Rev Entomol. 2018 Jan 7;63:327-344. doi: 10.1146/annurev-ento-020117-043423. Epub 2017 Oct 13. PMID: 29029590.

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Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primarily floral nectar) or the secretions of other insects, like the honeydew of aphids. This refinement takes place both within individual bees, through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, as well as during storage in the hive, through water evaporation that concentrates the honey's sugars until it is thick and viscous.

Honey bees stockpile honey in the hive. Within the hive is a structure made from wax called honeycomb. The honeycomb is made up of hundreds or thousands of hexagonal cells, into which the bees regurgitate honey for storage. Other honey-producing species of bee store the substance in different structures, such as the pots made of wax and resin used by the stingless bee.

Honey for human consumption is collected from wild bee colonies, or from the hives of domesticated bees. The honey produced by honey bees is the most familiar to humans, thanks to its worldwide commercial production and availability. The husbandry of bees is known as beekeeping or apiculture, with the cultivation of stingless bees usually referred to as meliponiculture.

Honey is sweet because of its high concentrations of the monosaccharides fructose and glucose. It has about the same relative sweetness as sucrose (table sugar). One standard tablespoon (15 mL) of honey provides around 190 kilojoules (46 kilocalories) of food energy. It has attractive chemical properties for baking and a distinctive flavor when used as a sweetener. Most microorganisms cannot grow in honey and sealed honey therefore does not spoil. Samples of honey discovered in archaeological contexts have proven edible even after thousands of years.

Honey use and production has a long and varied history, with its beginnings in prehistoric times. Several cave paintings in Cuevas de la Araña in Spain depict humans foraging for honey at least 8,000 years ago. While Apis melifera is an Old World insect, large-scale meliponiculture of New World stingless bees has been practiced by Mayans since pre-Columbian times.

Honey is produced by bees who have collected nectar or honeydew. Bees value honey for its sugars, which they consume to support general metabolic activity, especially that of their flight muscles during foraging, and as a food for their larvae. To this end bees stockpile honey to provide for themselves during ordinary foraging as well as during lean periods, as in overwintering. During foraging bees use part of the nectar they collect to power their flight muscles. The majority of nectar collected is not used to directly nourish the insects but is instead destined for regurgitation, enzymatic digestion, and finally long-term storage as honey. During cold weather or when other food sources are scarce, adult and larval bees consume stored honey, which is many times as energy-dense as the nectar from which it is made.

After leaving the hive a foraging bee collects sugar-rich nectar or honeydew. Nectar from the flower generally has a water content of 70 to 80% and is much less viscous than finished honey, which usually has a water content around 18%. The water content of honeydew from aphids and other true bugs is generally very close to the sap on which those insects feed and is usually somewhat more dilute than nectar. One source describes the water content of honeydew as around 89%. Whether it is feeding on nectar or honeydew, the bee sucks these runny fluids through its proboscis, which delivers the liquid to the bee's proventriculus, also called the honey stomach or honey crop. This cavity lies just above its food stomach, the latter of which digests pollen and sugars consumed by an individual honeybee for its own nourishment.

In Apis mellifera the honey stomach holds about 40 mg of liquid. This is about half the weight of an unladen bee. Collecting this quantity in nectar can require visits to more than a thousand flowers. When nectar is plentiful it can take a bee more than an hour of ceaseless work to collect enough nectar to fill its honey crop. Salivary enzymes and proteins from the bee's hypopharyngeal gland are secreted into the nectar once it is in the bee's honey stomach. These substances begin cleaving complex sugars like sucrose and starches into simpler sugars such as glucose and fructose. This process slightly raises the water content and the acidity of the partially digested nectar.

Once filled, the forager bees return to the hive. There they regurgitate and transfer nectar to hive bees. Once in their own honey stomachs the hive bees regurgitate the nectar, repeatedly forming bubbles between their mandibles, speeding its digestion and concentration. These bubbles create a large surface area per volume and by this means the bees evaporate a portion of the nectar's water into the warm air of the hive.

Hive bees form honey processing groups. These groups work in relay, with one bee subjecting the processed nectar to bubbling and then passing the refined liquid on to others. It can take as long as 20 minutes of continuous regurgitation, digestion and evaporation until the product reaches storage quality. The new honey is then placed in honeycomb cells, which are left uncapped. This honey still has a very high water content, up to 70%, depending on the concentration of nectar gathered. At this stage of its refinement the water content of the honey is high enough that ubiquitous yeast spores can reproduce in it, a process which, if left unchecked, would rapidly consume the new honey's sugars. To combat this, bees use an ability rare among insects: the endogenous generation of heat.

Bees are among the few insects that can create large amounts of body heat. They use this ability to produce a constant ambient temperature in their hives. Hive temperatures are usually around 35 °C (95 °F) in the honey-storage areas. This temperature is regulated either by generating heat with their bodies or removing it through water evaporation. The evaporation removes water from the stored honey, drawing heat from the colony. The bees use their wings to govern hive cooling. Coordinated wing beating moves air across the wet honey, drawing out water and heat. Ventilation of the hive eventually expels both excess water and heat into the outside world.

The process of evaporating continues until the honey reaches its final water content of between 15.5% to 18%. This concentrates the sugars far beyond the saturation point of water, which is to say there is far more sugar dissolved in what little water remains in honey than ever could be dissolved in an equivalent volume of water. Honey, even at hive temperatures, is therefore a supercooled solution of various sugars in water. These concentrations of sugar can only be achieved near room temperature by evaporation of a less concentrated solution, in this case nectar. For osmotic reasons such high concentrations of sugar are extremely unfavorable to microbiological reproduction and all fermentation is consequently halted. The bees then cap the cells of finished honey with wax. This seals them from contamination and prevents further evaporation.

So long as its water concentration does not rise much above 18%, honey has an indefinite shelf life, both within the hive and after its removal by a beekeeper.

Honey bees are not the only eusocial insects to produce honey. Some wasp species, such as Brachygastra lecheguana and Brachygastra mellifica, found in South and Central America, are known to feed on nectar and produce honey. Other wasps, such as Polistes versicolor, also consume honey. In the middle of their lifecycles they alternate between feeding on protein-rich pollen and feeding on honey, which is a far denser source of food energy.

Human beings have semi-domesticated several species of honeybee by taking advantage of their swarming stage. Swarming is the means by which new colonies are established when there is no longer space for expansion in the colony's present hive. The old queen lays eggs that will develop into new queens and then leads as many as half the colony to a site for a new hive. Bees generally swarm before a suitable location for another hive has been discovered by scouts sent out for this purpose. Until such a location is found the swarm will simply conglomerate near the former hive, often from tree branches. These swarms are unusually docile and amenable to transport by humans. When provided with a suitable nesting site, such as a commercial Langstroth hive, the swarm will readily form a new colony in artificial surroundings. These semi-domesticated colonies are then looked after by humans practicing apiculture or meliponiculture. Captured bees are encouraged to forage, often in agricultural settings such as orchards, where pollinators are highly valued. The honey, pollen, wax and resins the bees produce are all harvested by humans for a variety of uses.

The term "semi-domesticated" is preferred because all bee colonies, even those in very large agricultural apiculture operations, readily leave the protection of humans in swarms that can establish successful wild colonies. Much of the effort in commercial beekeeping is dedicated to persuading a hive that is ready to swarm to produce more honeycomb in its present location. This is usually done by adding more space to the colony with honey supers, empty boxes placed on top of an existing colony. The bees can then usually be enticed to develop this empty space instead of dividing their colony through swarming.

Honey is collected from wild bee colonies or from domesticated beehives. On average, a hive will produce about 29 kilograms (65 lb) of honey per year. Wild bee nests are sometimes located by following a honeyguide bird.

To safely collect honey from a hive, beekeepers typically pacify the bees using a bee smoker. The smoke triggers a feeding instinct (an attempt to save the resources of the hive from a possible fire), making them less aggressive, and obscures the pheromones the bees use to communicate. The honeycomb is removed from the hive and the honey may be extracted from it either by crushing or by using a honey extractor. The honey is then usually filtered to remove beeswax and other debris.

Before the invention of removable frames, bee colonies were often sacrificed to conduct the harvest. The harvester would take all the available honey and replace the entire colony the next spring. Since the invention of removable frames, the principles of husbandry led most beekeepers to ensure that their bees have enough stores to survive the winter, either by leaving some honey in the beehive or by providing the colony with a honey substitute such as sugar water or crystalline sugar (often in the form of a "candyboard"). The amount of food necessary to survive the winter depends on the variety of bees and on the length and severity of local winters.

Many animal species are attracted to wild or domestic sources of honey.

Because of its composition and chemical properties, honey is suitable for long-term storage, and is easily assimilated even after long preservation. Honey, and objects immersed in honey, have been preserved for centuries. The key to preservation is limiting access to humidity. In its cured state, honey has a sufficiently high sugar content to inhibit fermentation. If exposed to moist air, its hydrophilic properties pull moisture into the honey, eventually diluting it to the point that fermentation can begin.

The long shelf life of honey is attributed to an enzyme found in the stomach of bees. The bees mix glucose oxidase with expelled nectar they previously consumed, creating two byproducts – gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide, which are partially responsible for honey acidity and suppression of bacterial growth.

Honey is sometimes adulterated by the addition of other sugars, syrups, or compounds to change its flavor or viscosity, reduce cost, or increase the fructose content to stave off crystallization. Adulteration of honey has been practiced since ancient times, when honey was sometimes blended with plant syrups such as maple, birch, or sorghum and sold to customers as pure honey. Sometimes crystallized honey was mixed with flour or other fillers, hiding the adulteration from buyers until the honey was liquefied. In modern times the most common adulterant became clear, almost-flavorless corn syrup; the adulterated mixture can be very difficult to distinguish from pure honey.

According to the Codex Alimentarius of the United Nations, any product labeled as "honey" or "pure honey" must be a wholly natural product, although labeling laws differ between countries. In the United States, according to the National Honey Board (NHB; supervised by the United States Department of Agriculture), "honey stipulates a pure product that does not allow for the addition of any other substance... this includes, but is not limited to, water or other sweeteners".

Isotope ratio mass spectrometry can be used to detect addition of corn syrup and cane sugar by the carbon isotopic signature. Addition of sugars originating from corn or sugar cane (C4 plants, unlike the plants used by bees, and also sugar beet, which are predominantly C3 plants) skews the isotopic ratio of sugars present in honey, but does not influence the isotopic ratio of proteins. In an unadulterated honey, the carbon isotopic ratios of sugars and proteins should match. Levels as low as 7% of addition can be detected.

In 2020, global production of honey was 1.8 million tonnes, led by China with 26% of the world total (table). Other major producers were Turkey, Iran, Argentina, and Ukraine.

Over its history as a food, the main uses of honey are in cooking, baking, desserts, as a spread on bread, as an addition to various beverages such as tea, and as a sweetener in some commercial beverages.

Due to its energy density, honey is an important food for virtually all hunter-gatherer cultures in warm climates, with the Hadza people ranking honey as their favorite food. Honey hunters in Africa have a mutualistic relationship with certain species of honeyguide birds.

Possibly the world's oldest fermented beverage, dating from 9,000 years ago, mead ("honey wine") is the alcoholic product made by adding yeast to honey-water must and fermenting it for weeks or months. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is commonly used in modern mead production.

Mead varieties include drinks called metheglin (with spices or herbs), melomel (with fruit juices, such as grape, specifically called pyment), hippocras (with cinnamon), and sack mead (high concentration of honey), many of which have been developed as commercial products numbering in the hundreds in the United States. Honey is also used to make mead beer, called "braggot".

The physical properties of honey vary, depending on water content, the type of flora used to produce it (pasturage), temperature, and the proportion of the specific sugars it contains. Fresh honey is a supersaturated liquid, containing more sugar than the water can typically dissolve at ambient temperatures. At room temperature, honey is a supercooled liquid, in which the glucose precipitates into solid granules. This forms a semisolid solution of precipitated glucose crystals in a solution of fructose and other ingredients.

The density of honey typically ranges between 1.38 and 1.45 kg/L at 20 °C.

The melting point of crystallized honey is between 40 and 50 °C (104 and 122 °F), depending on its composition. Below this temperature, honey can be either in a metastable state, meaning that it will not crystallize until a seed crystal is added, or, more often, it is in a "labile" state, being saturated with enough sugars to crystallize spontaneously. The rate of crystallization is affected by many factors, but the primary factor is the ratio of the main sugars: fructose to glucose. Honeys that are supersaturated with a very high percentage of glucose, such as brassica honey, crystallize almost immediately after harvesting, while honeys with a low percentage of glucose, such as chestnut or tupelo honey, do not crystallize. Some types of honey may produce few but very large crystals, while others produce many small crystals.

Crystallization is also affected by water content, because a high percentage of water inhibits crystallization, as does a high dextrin content. Temperature also affects the rate of crystallization, with the fastest growth occurring between 13 and 17 °C (55 and 63 °F). Crystal nuclei (seeds) tend to form more readily if the honey is disturbed, by stirring, shaking, or agitating, rather than if left at rest. However, the nucleation of microscopic seed-crystals is greatest between 5 and 8 °C (41 and 46 °F). Therefore, larger but fewer crystals tend to form at higher temperatures, while smaller but more-numerous crystals usually form at lower temperatures. Below 5 °C, the honey will not crystallize, thus the original texture and flavor can be preserved indefinitely.

Honey is a supercooled liquid when stored below its melting point, as is normal. At very low temperatures, honey does not freeze solid; rather its viscosity increases. Like most viscous liquids, the honey becomes thick and sluggish with decreasing temperature. At −20 °C (−4 °F), honey may appear or even feel solid, but it continues to flow at very low rates. Honey has a glass transition between −42 and −51 °C (−44 and −60 °F). Below this temperature, honey enters a glassy state and becomes an amorphous solid (noncrystalline).

The viscosity of honey is affected greatly by both temperature and water content. The higher the water percentage, the more easily honey flows. Above its melting point, however, water has little effect on viscosity. Aside from water content, the composition of most types of honey also has little effect on viscosity. At 25 °C (77 °F), honey with 14% water content generally has a viscosity around 400 poise, while a honey containing 20% water has a viscosity around 20 poise. Viscosity increases very slowly with moderate cooling; a honey containing 16% water, at 70 °C (158 °F), has a viscosity around 2 poise, while at 30 °C (86 °F), the viscosity is around 70 poise. With further cooling, the increase in viscosity is more rapid, reaching 600 poise at around 14 °C (57 °F). However, while honey is viscous, it has low surface tension of 50–60 mJ/m2, making its wettability similar to water, glycerin, or most other liquids. The high viscosity and wettability of honey cause stickiness, which is a time-dependent process in supercooled liquids between the glass-transition temperature (Tg) and the crystalline-melting temperature.

Most types of honey are Newtonian liquids, but a few types have non-Newtonian viscous properties. Honeys from heather or manuka display thixotropic properties. These types of honey enter a gel-like state when motionless, but liquefy when stirred.

Because honey contains electrolytes, in the form of acids and minerals, it exhibits varying degrees of electrical conductivity. Measurements of the electrical conductivity are used to determine the quality of honey in terms of ash content.

The effect honey has on light is useful for determining the type and quality. Variations in its water content alter its refractive index. Water content can easily be measured with a refractometer. Typically, the refractive index for honey ranges from 1.504 at 13% water content to 1.474 at 25%. Honey also has an effect on polarized light, in that it rotates the polarization plane. The fructose gives a negative rotation, while the glucose gives a positive one. The overall rotation can be used to measure the ratio of the mixture. Honey may vary in color between pale yellow and dark brown, but other bright colors may occasionally be found, depending on the source of the sugar harvested by the bees. Bee colonies that forage on Kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata) flowers, for example, produce honey that varies in color from red to purple.

Honey has the ability to absorb moisture directly from the air, a phenomenon called hygroscopy. The amount of water the honey absorbs is dependent on the relative humidity of the air. Because honey contains yeast, this hygroscopic nature requires that honey be stored in sealed containers to prevent fermentation, which usually begins if the honey's water content rises much above 25%. Honey tends to absorb more water in this manner than the individual sugars allow on their own, which may be due to other ingredients it contains.

Fermentation of honey usually occurs after crystallization, because without the glucose, the liquid portion of the honey primarily consists of a concentrated mixture of fructose, acids, and water, providing the yeast with enough of an increase in the water percentage for growth. Honey that is to be stored at room temperature for long periods of time is often pasteurized, to kill any yeast, by heating it above 70 °C (158 °F).

Like all sugar compounds, honey caramelizes if heated sufficiently, becoming darker in color, and eventually burns. However, honey contains fructose, which caramelizes at lower temperatures than glucose. The temperature at which caramelization begins varies, depending on the composition, but is typically between 70 and 110 °C (158 and 230 °F). Honey also contains acids, which act as catalysts for caramelization. The specific types of acids and their amounts play a primary role in determining the exact temperature. Of these acids, the amino acids, which occur in very small amounts, play an important role in the darkening of honey. The amino acids form darkened compounds called melanoidins, during a Maillard reaction. The Maillard reaction occurs slowly at room temperature, taking from a few to several months to show visible darkening, but speeds up dramatically with increasing temperatures. However, the reaction can also be slowed by storing the honey at colder temperatures.

Unlike many other liquids, honey has very poor thermal conductivity of 0.5 W/(m⋅K) at 13% water content (compared to 401 W/(m⋅K) of copper), taking a long time to reach thermal equilibrium. Due to its high kinematic viscosity honey does not transfer heat through momentum diffusion (convection) but rather through thermal diffusion (more like a solid), so melting crystallized honey can easily result in localized caramelization if the heat source is too hot or not evenly distributed. However, honey takes substantially longer to liquefy when just above the melting point than at elevated temperatures. Melting 20 kg (44 lb) of crystallized honey at 40 °C (104 °F) can take up to 24 hours, while 50 kg (110 lb) may take twice as long. These times can be cut nearly in half by heating at 50 °C (122 °F); however, many of the minor substances in honey can be affected greatly by heating, changing the flavor, aroma, or other properties, so heating is usually done at the lowest temperature and for the shortest time possible.

The average pH of honey is 3.9, but can range from 3.4 to 6.1. Honey contains many kinds of acids, both organic and amino. However, the different types and their amounts vary considerably, depending on the type of honey. These acids may be aromatic or aliphatic (nonaromatic). The aliphatic acids contribute greatly to the flavor of honey by interacting with the flavors of other ingredients.

Organic acids comprise most of the acids in honey, accounting for 0.17–1.17% of the mixture, with gluconic acid formed by the actions of glucose oxidase as the most prevalent. Minor amounts of other organic acids are present, consisting of formic, acetic, butyric, citric, lactic, malic, pyroglutamic, propionic, valeric, capronic, palmitic, and succinic, among many others.

Individual honeys from different plant sources contain over 100 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which play a primary role in determining honey flavors and aromas. VOCs are carbon-based compounds that readily vaporize into the air, providing aroma, including the scents of flowers, essential oils, or ripening fruit. The typical chemical families of VOCs found in honey include hydrocarbons, aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, esters, acids, benzenes, furans, pyrans, norisoprenoids, and terpenes, among many others and their derivatives. The specific VOCs and their amounts vary considerably between different types of honey obtained by bees foraging on different plant sources. By example, when comparing the mixture of VOCs in different honeys in one review, longan honey had a higher amount of volatiles (48 VOCs), while sunflower honey had the lowest number of volatiles (8 VOCs).

VOCs are primarily introduced into the honey from the nectar, where they are excreted by the flowers imparting individual scents. The specific types and concentrations of certain VOCs can be used to determine the type of flora used to produce monofloral honeys. The specific geography, soil composition and acidity used to grow the flora also have an effect on honey aroma properties, such as a "fruity" or "grassy" aroma from longan honey, or a "waxy" aroma from sunflower honey. Dominant VOCs in one study were linalool oxide, trans-linalool oxide, 2-phenylacetaldehyde, benzyl ethanol, isophorone, and methyl nonanoate.

VOCs can also be introduced from the bodies of the bees, be produced by the enzymatic actions of digestion, or from chemical reactions that occur between different substances within the honey during storage, and therefore may change, increase, or decrease over long periods of time. VOCs may be produced, altered, or greatly affected by temperature and processing. Some VOCs are heat labile, and are destroyed at elevated temperatures, while others can be created during non-enzymatic reactions, such as the Maillard reaction. VOCs are responsible for nearly all of the aroma produced by a honey, which may be described as "sweet", "flowery", "citrus", "almond" or "rancid", among other terms. In addition, VOCs play a large role in determining the specific flavor of the honey, both through the aromas and flavor. VOCs from honeys in different geographic regions can be used as floral markers of those regions, and as markers of the bees that foraged the nectars.

Honey is classified by its floral source, and divisions are made according to the packaging and processing used. Regional honeys are also identified. In the US, honey is also graded on its color and optical density by USDA standards, graded on the Pfund scale, which ranges from 0 for "water white" honey to more than 114 for "dark amber" honey.

Generally, honey is classified by the floral source of the nectar from which it was made. Honeys can be from specific types of flower nectars or can be blended after collection. The pollen in honey is traceable to floral source and therefore region of origin. The rheological and melissopalynological properties of honey can be used to identify the major plant nectar source used in its production.

Most commercially available honey is a blend of two or more honeys differing in floral source, color, flavor, density, or geographic origin.

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

Monofloral honey is made primarily from the nectar of one type of flower. Monofloral honeys have distinctive flavors and colors because of differences between their principal nectar sources. To produce monofloral honey, beekeepers keep beehives in an area where the bees have access, as far as possible, to only one type of flower. In practice a small proportion of any monofloral honey will be from other flower types. Typical examples of North American monofloral honeys are clover, orange blossom, sage, tupelo, buckwheat, fireweed, mesquite, sourwood, cherry, and blueberry. Some typical European examples include thyme, thistle, heather, acacia, dandelion, sunflower, lavender, honeysuckle, and varieties from lime and chestnut trees. In North Africa (e.g. Egypt), examples include clover, cotton, and citrus (mainly orange blossoms). The unique flora of Australia yields a number of distinctive honeys, with some of the most popular being yellow box, blue gum, ironbark, bush mallee, Tasmanian leatherwood, and macadamia.

Instead of taking nectar, bees can take honeydew, the sweet secretions of aphids or other plant-sap-sucking insects. Honeydew honey is very dark brown, with a rich fragrance of stewed fruit or fig jam, and is not as sweet as nectar honeys. Germany's Black Forest is a well-known source of honeydew-based honeys, as are some regions in Bulgaria, Tara in Serbia, and Northern California in the United States. In Greece, pine honey, a type of honeydew honey, constitutes 60–65% of honey production. Honeydew honey is popular in some areas, but in other areas, beekeepers have difficulty selling honeydew honey, due to its stronger flavor.

The production of honeydew honey has some complications and dangers. This honey has a much larger proportion of indigestibles than light floral honeys, thus causing dysentery to the bees, resulting in the death of colonies in areas with cold winters. Good beekeeping management requires the removal of honeydew prior to winter in colder areas. Bees collecting this resource also have to be fed protein supplements, as honeydew lacks the protein-rich pollen accompaniment gathered from flowers.

Honeydew honey is sometimes called "myelate".

Generally, honey is bottled in its familiar liquid form, but it is sold in other forms, and can be subjected to a variety of processing methods.

Countries have differing standards for grading honey. In the US, honey grading is performed voluntarily based upon USDA standards. USDA offers inspection and grading "as on-line (in-plant) or lot inspection...upon application, on a fee-for-service basis." Honey is graded based upon a number of factors, including water content, flavor and aroma, absence of defects, and clarity. Honey is also classified by color, though it is not a factor in the grading scale.

The honey grade scale is:

India certifies honey grades based on additional factors, such as the Fiehe's test, and other empirical measurements.

High-quality honey can be distinguished by fragrance, taste, and consistency. Ripe, freshly collected, high-quality honey at 20 °C (68 °F) should flow from a knife in a straight stream, without breaking into separate drops. After falling down, the honey should form a bead. The honey, when poured, should form small, temporary layers that disappear fairly quickly, indicating high viscosity. If not, it indicates honey with excessive water content of over 20%, not suitable for long-term preservation.

In jars, fresh honey should appear as a pure, consistent fluid, and should not set in layers. Within a few weeks to a few months of extraction, many varieties of honey crystallize into a cream-colored solid. Some varieties of honey, including tupelo, acacia, and sage, crystallize less regularly. Honey may be heated during bottling at temperatures of 40–49 °C (104–120 °F) to delay or inhibit crystallization. Overheating is indicated by change in enzyme levels, for instance, diastase activity, which can be determined with the Schade or the Phadebas methods. A fluffy film on the surface of the honey (like a white foam), or marble-colored or white-spotted crystallization on a container's sides, is formed by air bubbles trapped during the bottling process.

A 2008 Italian study determined that nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy can be used to distinguish between different honey types, and can be used to pinpoint the area where it was produced. Researchers were able to identify differences in acacia and polyfloral honeys by the differing proportions of fructose and sucrose, as well as differing levels of aromatic amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine. This ability allows greater ease of selecting compatible stocks.

One hundred grams of honey provides about 1,270 kJ (304 kcal) of energy with no significant amounts of essential nutrients. Composed of 17% water and 82% carbohydrates, honey has low content of fat, dietary fiber, and protein.

A mixture of sugars and other carbohydrates, honey is mainly fructose (about 38%) and glucose (about 32%), with remaining sugars including maltose, sucrose, and other complex carbohydrates. Its glycemic index ranges from 31 to 78, depending on the variety. The specific composition, color, aroma, and flavor of any batch of honey depend on the flowers foraged by bees that produced the honey.

One 1980 study found that mixed floral honey from several United States regions typically contains the following:

This means that 55% of the combined fructose and glucose content was fructose and 45% was glucose, which enables comparison with the essentially identical result (average of 56% and 44%) in the study described below:

A 2013 NMR spectroscopy study of 20 different honeys from Germany found that their sugar contents comprised:

The average ratio was 56% fructose to 44% glucose, but the ratios in the individual honeys ranged from a high of 64% fructose and 36% glucose (one type of flower honey; table 3 in reference) to a low of 50% fructose and 50% glucose (a different floral source). This NMR method was not able to quantify maltose, galactose, and the other minor sugars as compared to fructose and glucose.

Honey is a folk treatment for burns and other skin injuries. Preliminary evidence suggests that it aids in the healing of partial thickness burns 4–5 days faster than other dressings, and moderate evidence suggests that post-operative infections treated with honey heal faster and with fewer adverse events than with antiseptic and gauze. The evidence for the use of honey in various other wound treatments is of low quality, and firm conclusions cannot be drawn. Evidence does not support the use of honey-based products for the treatment of venous stasis ulcers or ingrown toenail. Several medical-grade honey products have been approved by the FDA for use in treating minor wounds and burns.

Honey has long been used as a topical antibiotic by practitioners of traditional and herbal medicine. Honey's antibacterial effects were first demonstrated by the Dutch scientist Bernardus Adrianus van Ketel in 1892. Since then, numerous studies have shown that honey has broad-spectrum antibacterial activity against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, although potency varies widely between different honeys. Due to the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the last few decades, there has been renewed interest in researching the antibacterial properties of honey. Components of honey under preliminary research for potential antibiotic use include methylglyoxal, hydrogen peroxide, and royalisin (also called defensin-1).

For chronic and acute coughs, a Cochrane review found no strong evidence for or against the use of honey. For treating children, the systematic review concluded with moderate to low evidence that honey helps more than no treatment, diphenhydramine, and placebo at giving relief from coughing. Honey does not appear to work better than dextromethorphan at relieving coughing in children. Other reviews have also supported the use of honey for treating children.

The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency recommends avoiding giving over-the-counter cough and common cold medication to children under six, and suggests "a homemade remedy containing honey and lemon is likely to be just as useful and safer to take", but warns that honey should not be given to babies because of the risk of infant botulism. The World Health Organization recommends honey as a treatment for coughs and sore throats, including for children, stating that no reason exists to believe it is less effective than a commercial remedy.

The use of honey has been recommended as a temporary intervention for known or suspected button cell battery ingestions to reduce the risk and severity of injury to the esophagus caused by the battery prior to its removal.

There is no evidence that honey is beneficial for treating cancer, although honey may be useful for controlling side effects of radiation therapy or chemotherapy used to treat cancer.

Consumption is sometimes advocated as a treatment for seasonal allergies due to pollen, but scientific evidence to support the claim is inconclusive. Honey is generally considered ineffective for the treatment of allergic conjunctivitis.

The majority of calories in honey are from fructose. When consumed in addition to a normal diet, fructose causes significant weight gain, but when fructose was substituted for other carbohydrates of equal energy value there was no effect on body weight.

Honey has a mild laxative effect which has been noted as being helpful in alleviating constipation and bloating.

Honey is generally safe when taken in typical food amounts, but it may have various, potential adverse effects or interactions in combination with excessive consumption, existing disease conditions, or drugs. Included among these are mild reactions to high intake, such as anxiety, insomnia, or hyperactivity in about 10% of children, according to one study. No symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, or hyperactivity were detected with honey consumption compared to placebo, according to another study. Honey consumption may interact adversely with existing allergies, high blood sugar levels (as in diabetes), or anticoagulants used to control bleeding, among other clinical conditions.

People who have a weakened immune system may be at risk of bacterial or fungal infection from eating honey.

Infants can develop botulism after consuming honey contaminated with Clostridium botulinum endospores.

Infantile botulism shows geographical variation. In the UK, only six cases were reported between 1976 and 2006, yet the US has much higher rates: 1.9 per 100,000 live births, 47.2% of which are in California. While the risk honey poses to infant health is small, taking the risk is not recommended until after one year of age, and then giving honey is considered safe.

Mad honey intoxication is a result of eating honey containing grayanotoxins. Honey produced from flowers of rhododendrons, mountain laurels, sheep laurel, and azaleas may cause honey intoxication. Symptoms include dizziness, weakness, excessive perspiration, nausea, and vomiting. Less commonly, low blood pressure, shock, heart rhythm irregularities, and convulsions may occur, with rare cases resulting in death. Honey intoxication is more likely when using "natural" unprocessed honey and honey from farmers who may have a small number of hives. Commercial processing, with pooling of honey from numerous sources, is thought to dilute any toxins.

Toxic honey may also result when bees are proximate to tutu bushes (Coriaria arborea) and the vine hopper insect (Scolypopa australis). Both are found throughout New Zealand. Bees gather honeydew produced by the vine hopper insects feeding on the tutu plant. This introduces the poison tutin into honey. Only a few areas in New Zealand (the Coromandel Peninsula, Eastern Bay of Plenty Region and the Marlborough Sounds) frequently produce toxic honey. Symptoms of tutin poisoning include vomiting, delirium, giddiness, increased excitability, stupor, coma, and violent convulsions. To reduce the risk of tutin poisoning, humans should not eat honey taken from feral hives in the risk areas of New Zealand. Since December 2001, New Zealand beekeepers have been required to reduce the risk of producing toxic honey by closely monitoring tutu, vine hopper, and foraging conditions within 3 km (2 mi) of their apiary. Intoxication is rarely dangerous.

In myths and folk medicine, honey was used both orally and topically to treat various ailments including gastric disturbances, ulcers, skin wounds, and skin burns by ancient Greeks and Egyptians, and in Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine.

Honey collection is an ancient activity, long preceding the honey bee's domestication; this traditional practice is known as honey hunting. A Mesolithic rock painting in a cave in Valencia, Spain, dating back at least 8,000 years, depicts two honey foragers collecting honey and honeycomb from a wild bees' nest. The figures are depicted carrying baskets or gourds, and using a ladder or series of ropes to reach the nest. Humans followed the greater honeyguide bird to wild beehives; this behavior may have evolved with early hominids. The oldest known honey remains were found in Georgia during the construction of the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline: archaeologists found honey remains on the inner surface of clay vessels unearthed in an ancient tomb, dating back between 4,700 and 5,500 years. In ancient Georgia, several types of honey were buried with a person for journeys into the afterlife, including linden, berry, and meadow-flower varieties.

The first written records of beekeeping are from ancient Egypt, where honey was used to sweeten cakes, biscuits, and other foods and as a base for unguents in Egyptian hieroglyphs. The dead were often buried in or with honey in Egypt, Mesopotamia and other regions. Bees were kept at temples to produce honey for temple offerings, mummification and other uses.

In ancient Greece, honey was produced from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods. In 594 BC, beekeeping around Athens was so widespread that Solon passed a law about it: "He who sets up hives of bees must put them 300 feet away from those already installed by another". Greek archaeological excavations of pottery located ancient hives. According to Columella, Greek beekeepers of the Hellenistic period did not hesitate to move their hives over rather long distances to maximize production, taking advantage of the different vegetative cycles in different regions. The spiritual and supposed therapeutic use of honey in ancient India was documented in both the Vedas and the Ayurveda texts.

In ancient Greek religion, the food of Zeus and the twelve Gods of Olympus was honey in the form of nectar and ambrosia.

In the Hebrew Bible, the Promised Land (Canaan, the Land of Israel) is described 16 times as "the land of milk and honey" as a metaphor for its bounty. God promises such a land to the Israelites (Exodus 3:8), and the spies sent in by Moses confirm that the land fits the description (Numbers 13:27).

The word "honey" appears for a further 39 times, outside the above-mentioned phrase. In the Book of Judges, Samson finds a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of a lion (Judges 14:8). Biblical law covered offerings made in the temple to God. The Book of Leviticus says that "Every grain offering you bring to the Lord must be made without yeast, for you are not to burn any yeast or honey in a food offering presented to the Lord" (Lev 2:11). In the Books of Samuel, Jonathan is forced into a confrontation with his father King Saul after eating honey in violation of a rash oath Saul has made (1 Samuel 14:24–47). Proverbs 16:24 in the JPS Tanakh 1917 version says "Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, Sweet to the soul, and health to the bones." The Book of Proverbs says, "Eat honey, my son, for it is good" (Prov. 24:13), but also, "It is not good to eat much honey" (Prov. 25:27).

Of the 55 times the word "honey" appears in the Hebrew Bible, 16 are part of the expression "the land of milk and honey", and only twice is "honey" explicitly associated with bees, both being related to wild bees: Samson collecting bees' honey from inside a lion's corpse (Judges 14:8–9) is the first instance, with Jonathan, King Saul's son, tasting from a honeycomb after the battle of Michmash (1 Samuel 14:27) being the second.

Modern biblical researchers long considered that the original Hebrew word used in the Bible, דבש devash, refers to the sweet syrup produced from figs or dates, because the domestication of the honey bee was completely undocumented through archaeology anywhere in the ancient Near East (excluding Egypt) at the time associated with the earlier biblical narratives (books of Exodus, Judges, Kings, etc.). In 2005, however, an apiary dating from the 10th century BC was found in Tel Rehov, Israel that contained 100 hives, estimated to produce half a ton of honey annually. This was, as of 2007, the only such finding made by archaeologists in the entire ancient Near East region, and it opens the possibility that biblical honey was indeed bee honey.

In Jewish tradition, honey is a symbol for the new year, Rosh Hashanah. At the traditional meal for that holiday, apple slices are dipped in honey and eaten to bring a sweet new year. Some Rosh Hashanah greetings show honey and an apple, symbolizing the feast. In some congregations, small straws of honey are given out to usher in the new year.

Pure honey is considered kosher (permitted to be eaten by religious Jews), though it is produced by a flying insect, a non-kosher creature; eating other products of non-kosher animals is forbidden. It belongs among the parve (neutral) foods, containing neither meat nor dairy products and allowed to be eaten together with either.

The Christian New Testament says that John the Baptist lived for a long of time in the wilderness on a diet of locusts and wild honey (see for instance Mark 1:6).

Early Christians used honey as a symbol of spiritual perfection in christening ceremonies.

In Islam, an entire chapter (Surah) in the Quran is called an-Nahl (the Bees). According to his teachings (hadith), Muhammad strongly recommended honey for healing purposes.The Quran promotes honey as a nutritious and healthy food, saying:

In Hinduism, honey (Madhu) is one of the five elixirs of life (Panchamrita). In temples, honey is poured over the deities in a ritual called Madhu abhisheka. The Vedas and other ancient literature mention the use of honey as a great medicinal and health food.

In Buddhism, honey plays an important role in the festival of Madhu Purnima, celebrated in India and Bangladesh. The day commemorates Buddha's making peace among his disciples by retreating into the wilderness. According to legend, while he was there a monkey brought him honey to eat. On Madhu Purnima, Buddhists remember this act by giving honey to monks. The monkey's gift is frequently depicted in Buddhist art.