Something remarkable happens when a bee lands on a flower – the first step in an extraordinary journey that will eventually bring raw honey to your breakfast table. This golden elixir, treasured for millennia, begins as simple nectar and transforms through one of nature's most fascinating processes. At Nettie's Bees, we believe that understanding how raw honey is made deepens your appreciation for this perfect food and highlights why our commitment to minimal processing matters. Join us as we follow the complete lifecycle of honey – from the first sip of nectar to the final jar on your shelf – and discover the delicate balance between nature's ingenuity and human stewardship.

Nature's First Step: From Flower Nectar to Bee Collection

The story of honey begins with plants, which produce nectar as a sweet bribe to attract pollinators. This sugary liquid is produced in specialized glands called nectaries, typically located at the base of flowers. Plants invest valuable energy in creating this sweet substance for one purpose: to ensure their pollen is distributed, allowing them to reproduce.

Different plants produce different nectars – varying in sugar content, aroma compounds, and other trace elements. These variations are what create the distinctive flavor profiles in different honey varieties. Clover honey's mild sweetness, buckwheat honey's robust earthiness, and orange blossom honey's subtle citrus notes all begin with the unique nectar of their source plants.

The Foraging Process

Honey production relies on specialized female worker bees who serve as foragers during the final weeks of their 6-week lifespan. These experienced foragers have developed remarkable skills for efficiently locating and collecting nectar.

When a bee discovers a productive nectar source, she returns to the hive and performs what scientists call the "waggle dance" – a figure-eight movement that communicates precise information about the distance and direction of the food source. This sophisticated communication system allows the colony to efficiently target the most productive flowering areas.

When collecting nectar, a forager bee extends her proboscis – a straw-like tongue – deep into the flower to reach the nectaries. She sucks the nectar up through this specialized organ and into her honey stomach (or crop), a separate storage organ from her digestive stomach. A typical forager can carry about 40mg of nectar per trip, roughly half her body weight!

The Journey Back to the Hive

Foraging bees may travel up to 5 miles from their hive to collect nectar, though most prefer to stay within a 2-mile radius when suitable flowers are available. This explains why local honey bee nectar collection can result in such distinctive honey – it truly represents the specific flora of a small geographic area.

The honey production process is surprisingly resource-intensive. To produce just one pound of honey, foraging bees collectively fly about 55,000 miles and visit between 2 and 5 million flowers. When you consider that a typical hive might produce 60-100 pounds of honey annually, the scale of this natural collaboration becomes truly awe-inspiring.

During the flight back to the hive, the transformation of nectar to honey has already begun. Enzymes from the bee's hypopharyngeal glands, particularly invertase (also called sucrase), start breaking down the complex sugar sucrose into simpler sugars glucose and fructose. This enzymatic reaction is the first step in the nectar to honey transformation.

Inside the Hive: The Transformation Begins

Once foragers return to the hive, the more complex aspects of honey creation begin – turning thin, unstable nectar into shelf-stable honey.

The Honey Creation Process

Back at the hive, forager bees transfer their nectar load to younger house bees through a process called trophallaxis – essentially regurgitating the nectar for the receiving bees. Far from being unpleasant, this process is crucial to honey's creation. Each bee that receives the nectar adds more enzymes, continuing the chemical transformation.

The primary enzymes added include:

• Invertase: Continues converting sucrose into glucose and fructose
• Glucose oxidase: Creates gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide, which help preserve the honey
• Diastase (amylase): Breaks down starch into simpler sugars

This enzyme-rich environment fundamentally changes the nectar's composition. What started as primarily sucrose is now predominantly fructose and glucose, with dozens of other sugars in smaller amounts. These enzymatic changes are a key reason why raw honey offers more than just sweetness.

Curing and Storage

Fresh nectar contains up to 70% water – far too high for proper preservation. To address this, house bees spread the nectar in thin layers throughout the honeycomb and fan their wings vigorously, creating airflow that evaporates excess moisture. This dedicated effort reduces the water content to below 18% (typically 16-17%), which creates an environment where most harmful microorganisms cannot survive.

Once the moisture content reaches this optimal level, the bees consider the honey "ripe" and seal each honeycomb cell with a cap of beeswax. This natural packaging keeps the honey pristine and prevents it from absorbing additional moisture from the air.

The labor involved in this process is staggering. Scientists estimate that to produce one pound of honey requires over 55,000 bee-hours of work. When you hold a jar of honey, you're holding the lifetime achievement of hundreds of bees.

The Beekeeper's Role: Sustainable Harvesting

While bees do the critical work of making honey, the beekeeper plays an essential role in the careful harvesting of this natural treasure.

Timing the Harvest

Experienced beekeepers know that timing is everything when it comes to beekeeper honey harvesting. They look for specific indicators that honey is ready:

• At least 80% of the honeycomb cells are capped with beeswax
• The honey passes a "shake test" (when frames are shaken, no nectar droplets appear)
• Moisture content measures below 18% when tested with a refractometer

Honey production follows nature's rhythms, with distinct seasonal variations. Spring harvests often feature lighter, more delicate honey from early-blooming plants, while late summer and fall harvests tend to produce darker, more robust honey varieties. At Nettie's Bees, we embrace these natural variations rather than trying to create a homogenized product.

Critically, sustainable beekeepers harvest only excess honey, ensuring the colony retains enough to sustain itself. A healthy hive needs approximately 40-60 pounds of honey to survive winter in most climates. Taking too much honey and replacing it with sugar syrup (as some commercial operations do) can weaken colonies over time.

Removing Honeycomb Frames

The honey removal process requires patience and care. Our beekeepers use gentle methods to access the honey-filled frames:

Bee brushes with soft bristles can carefully remove bees from individual frames with minimal disturbance. For larger-scale harvesting, bee escapes or clearing boards create one-way exits that allow bees to leave the honey super (the section of the hive where surplus honey is stored) but not return.

Throughout this process, sustainable beekeepers minimize colony stress by:

• Working during favorable weather conditions
• Using minimal smoke to calm the bees
• Keeping the hive open for as short a time as possible
• Handling frames gently to avoid crushing bees
• Leaving adequate honey stores for the colony

These practices reflect the mutually beneficial relationship between beekeepers and their bees – a partnership rather than just a harvest.

From Hive to Extraction: The First Human Touchpoints

Once the frames are removed from the hive, the raw honey extraction process begins – the first point where human handling significantly impacts honey quality.

Uncapping the Honeycomb

Before extraction, the beeswax caps that seal each honeycomb cell must be removed. This process, called uncapping, is typically done in a temperature-controlled environment to ensure the honey maintains its natural properties.

Beekeepers use specialized tools for this precise work:

• Uncapping knives (either heated or cold)
• Uncapping forks that pierce the caps
• Automatic uncapping machines for larger operations

At Nettie's Bees, our partners perform this work by hand, taking care to preserve the structural integrity of the honeycomb while fully exposing the honey for extraction. This attention to detail helps minimize unnecessary damage to the honeycomb, which can be returned to the hive for reuse, saving bees significant energy in rebuilding.

The Extraction Process

The actual honeycomb to jar process continues with extraction. Most modern beekeepers use a centrifugal extractor – essentially a specialized centrifuge for honeycomb frames. The frames are placed inside a large drum that spins rapidly, using centrifugal force to pull honey out of the cells while leaving the wax structure intact.

This mechanical method is remarkably gentle on the honey, requiring no heat or chemical additives. The honey simply flows out of the cells and down the sides of the extractor, where it pools at the bottom before being collected.

Temperature control during extraction is crucial for preserving honey's natural properties. At Nettie's Bees, we ensure the extraction room stays close to the natural hive temperature (around 95°F/35°C). This maintains honey's flow properties without damaging heat-sensitive enzymes and compounds.

This minimal honey processing approach contrasts sharply with commercial operations, which often heat honey significantly during extraction to speed up the process. Our patience at this stage helps preserve the bioactive compounds that make raw honey special.

Preserving Nature's Perfect Food: Minimal Processing

After extraction, the approach to processing fundamentally determines whether honey remains truly "raw" or becomes a more processed product. At Nettie's Bees, we believe in minimal intervention.

Straining vs. Filtering

Most fresh-extracted honey contains small particles of wax, propolis, and occasionally pollen or tiny bits of honeycomb. These natural elements don't affect honey's quality or safety, but some level of straining helps remove larger particles.

The critical distinction is between straining and filtering:

• Straining uses a coarse mesh or sieve that removes only large particles while preserving beneficial elements like pollen grains and propolis fragments. This is the method we use at Nettie's Bees.
• Filtering often involves pressure-filtering through extremely fine filters, sometimes after heating the honey to reduce viscosity. This process removes virtually all pollen and particulates, resulting in ultra-clear honey but eliminating many beneficial components.

Through simple straining, our honey retains:

• Bee pollen (containing amino acids, vitamins, and minerals)
• Small propolis fragments (with antimicrobial properties)
• Natural enzymes from both the bees and floral sources
• The complete "fingerprint" of pollen that identifies honey's geographic origin

The No-Heat Approach

Temperature control represents another crucial difference between raw and processed honey. At Nettie's Bees, we never heat our honey above natural hive temperatures (around 95°F/35°C).

Commercial processing typically involves pasteurizing honey at temperatures between 150-170°F (65-77°C). While this kills yeast cells (preventing fermentation), eases filtering, and prevents crystallization, it also damages many of honey's natural properties:

• Enzymes like diastase and invertase begin to degrade at temperatures above 95°F
• Beneficial bacteria may be eliminated
• Volatile compounds responsible for subtle aromas can be lost
• Delicate flavors may be altered
• Some antioxidant content is reduced

Our commitment to temperature control ensures that the nutrients and bioactive compounds in our honey remain as nature intended – preserving both the health benefits and the complex flavor profiles of truly raw honey.

The Final Steps: From Batch to Bottle

The journey from hive to your table concludes with careful bottling that preserves honey's quality while preparing it for your enjoyment.

After straining, our honey moves to a settling tank where it rests, allowing any remaining tiny air bubbles or microscopic particles to rise to the surface naturally. This gravity-based clarification requires patience but maintains honey's integrity.

Our small-batch bottling process involves:

• Stainless steel equipment that's meticulously cleaned between batches
• Glass jars that prevent any chemical leaching (unlike some plastic containers)
• Minimal handling to reduce air incorporation
• Careful attention to proper filling temperatures

Every batch undergoes quality testing for:

• Moisture content (using a refractometer)
• Visual inspection
• Flavor assessment
• Consistency check

The Local Connection

What truly distinguishes Nettie's Bees is our commitment to preserving local identity throughout the honey production process. Each jar is labeled to identify:

• The specific beekeeper who produced the honey
• The geographic location where the bees foraged
• The predominant floral sources (when identifiable)
• The harvest season and year

This traceability creates a direct connection between you and your food source. When you enjoy our wildflower honey from the Oakridge Valley, you're tasting the specific plants that bloomed there that season, collected by a specific beekeeper's hives. This transparency honors the unique story behind each batch of honey.

The Journey Continues: How Raw Honey Ages

Unlike many foods that deteriorate with time, properly harvested and stored raw honey can last indefinitely – literally thousands of years, as proven by still-edible honey found in ancient Egyptian tombs!

One natural process you'll likely observe is crystallization. Far from being a quality issue, natural crystallization is simply glucose sugar molecules naturally aligning into crystals. Different honey varieties crystallize at different rates based on their glucose-to-fructose ratio, with some (like clover or alfalfa honey) crystallizing within months while others (like tupelo or acacia) may remain liquid for years.

Some honey enthusiasts specifically enjoy crystallized honey's spreadable texture. If you prefer liquid honey, gentle warming in a water bath below a steadying 95°F/35°C will return crystallized honey to its liquid state without damaging its beneficial properties.

Raw honey may also develop more complex flavor notes as it ages. Similar to fine wine, certain honey varieties can mature over time, with subtle flavor changes as various compounds interact.

To maintain optimal quality, store your honey:

• Away from direct sunlight
• In a cool, stable environment (though not refrigerated)
• With the lid tightly sealed to prevent moisture absorption

Nettie's Bees Commitment to Preserving Honey's Journey

From the first sip of nectar to the final jar, every step in honey's journey matters. At Nettie's Bees, our philosophy centers on preserving the integrity of this remarkable natural process.

Our partnerships with local beekeepers are built on shared values of:

• Sustainable hive management that prioritizes bee health
• Harvest practices that leave abundant honey for the colonies
• Minimal intervention processing that preserves honey's natural qualities
• Transparency in production methods and sourcing

We believe sustainable honey harvesting means working with nature rather than attempting to industrialize it. Our minimal honey processing approach honors both the sophisticated work of the bees and the careful stewardship of our beekeeper partners.

Conclusion

The journey from flower to jar reveals honey for what it truly is – not simply a sweetener, but one of nature's most remarkable foods, created through an intricate collaboration between plants, bees, and careful human stewardship.

What makes raw honey special is how little human intervention is needed to create something so perfect. Every step in the process – from the nectar's enzymatic transformation to the careful extraction and minimal straining – contributes to raw honey's unique character and beneficial properties.

By choosing honey that honors this natural process, you're not just selecting a sweeter option; you're embracing one of nature's most perfect foods, created through millions of years of evolutionary partnership between flowering plants and honeybees.