Permaculture

Raw honey is one of the most sought after products on the market to date. Although it can be gathered from certain flowers and other insects the main source of honey is bee keeping. Bee keepers will have acres of large bee colonies in order to meet the consumption demands of the world. Everyone loves honey with breakfast, but it has many medical uses as well.

Raw honey is one of the best sweeteners available at the moment, and has been for centuries. It is unburdened by processing, and needs no additives to achieve its sweetness. It is mainly 38 percent fructose, and 31 percent glucose. People love to use it as an alternative sweetener and the demand for it makes bee keeping a very profitable industry. Bees store the honey as a form of food to use during the winter months when other sources run low. A typical beehive has one queen, a few hundred males, and up to forty thousand female workers. There are many types of honey and the taste is determined by the flower the nectar came from. Most common honey that you buy in stores is a blended variety coming from several different flowers.

Raw honey is taken from most modern bee hives simply by pulling out a wooden slide which has a cell structure built into it. This structure is employed by the bees to store the honey so all one has to do is drain it and reinsert it. This leaves the colony intact and only the additional honey is taken. After all taking all of the honey would leave none for the bees and a dead bee hive would be bad for bee keeping.

Another application that some believe raw honey has is allergy relief. Some folks believe that consuming honey that has not been filtered and still has traces of the wax and other materials can increase allergy resistance. Food agencies have yet to figure out if this basically works or not. In any case bee keeping is a particularly busy job, and shielding oneself is critical.

Honey is also useful as an antiseptic on small cuts or wounds.

Bee keepers will wear complete screen suits when they walk around their bee hives. Although they are not at once threatening the bees there’s still the likelihood of being stung. Naturally even with the use of the newest protection 1 or 2 stings still manage to get thru. Most  bees are not very aggressive, but if you threaten their colony you could have a problem on your hands. When making an attempt to get raw honey from a natural hive in the badlands you run 2 risks. Number one you are climbing a tree so you might break your neck. Number 2 if you bug the hive when most are home you may not make it out alive. This is the reason why bee keeping is a safer alternative option to natural gathering.

Regardless of if you want raw honey for food, or for medical purposes chances are you’re not going to get it out of a tree. Most honey that is in stores now is made via bee keeping and is perfectly safe to eat. It’s good on everything from biscuits to pancakes, and makes a great sweetener for hot drinks. Some people have even used it to treat burns in emergency cases.