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About Honey
Crystallized Honey:
Nearly every honey crystallizes, some crystallize faster than others. This happens for a number of reasons:
1)When glucose, of the sugars in the honey loses water and becomes a crystal. The more glucose in the honey, the sooner
it will crystallize. There are more than one sugar in honey, they include: fructose, glucose, sucrose and maltose.
2) When there are particles in the honey, including pollen, propolis, and beeswax. All of these are present in unfiltered
honey.
3) Cold temperatures will promote crystallization as well.
Crystallized Honey: What you can do with it:
You can do anything with crystallized honey that you can do with runny honey, except mix it easily into cold recipes, like
bread or a honey-vinaigrette. It will dissolve in teas, coffees, or any hot concoction. It spreads easily, and stays put.
This beekeeper prefers the taste of crystallized honey to runny honey. I feel it brings out more of the honey's flavor.
Crystallized Honey: when you need to make it run:
You can turn your crystallized honey into runny honey by heating it, but be careful. To keep all the healthy benefits of
raw honey, do not heat your honey over 120F. Keeping it at 100F is even better, (more room for a little error). Only "decrystalize"
the amount you need. When honey is repeatedly heated,it looses its texture.
You can heat it: in a steam bath, a water bath, a warm south facing window, the dash board of your car on a hot day, or
in a microwave.
Bee Factuals
One bee visits more than one million flowers to make one pound of honey.
Bees can fly up to 15 miles per hour.
A bees wings beat 250 times each second.
Honeybees pollinate more than 80% of the crops in the US.
All the worker bees are females.
Bees sleep in little naps.
The older the bee the longer the nap and the more regularly those naps occur.
In The Hive
Hives have 60,000 to 80,000 bees in the summer and
20,000 to 30,000 bees in the winter.
The hive keeps its temperature at around 95 degrees F.
In winter the core of the cluster is 95 degrees F, but the outer layer of bees is 60 degrees F. If the temperature drops
below 59 degrees F, the bees can drop off in "cold stupor".
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