Why Honey Lasts

Most food goes bad after a few days. Think about a slice of bread. If you leave bread on a table, it gets green spots. Those spots are mold. Mold and bacteria are tiny germs. They eat our food. They make the food rot.

Germs need a lot of water to live. Bread has water in it. Milk has water in it. Fresh nectar has a lot of water in it. But honey is very different. Honey has almost no water.

Scientists measure the water in food. They call this moisture content 1. Fresh nectar has high moisture content. It is mostly water. Thick honey has low moisture content. It is mostly sugar.

Imagine a wet sponge. You squeeze the sponge. The water falls out. The sponge becomes dry. Bees cannot squeeze nectar. They must use air to dry it.

We know bees fan their wings inside the hive. The fast air dries the wet nectar. The wet nectar turns into thick honey. The dry honey is not a good home for germs. The germs die of thirst 2.

Drying on the Fly

Bees do not wait to get home. They start drying the nectar in the sky. They work while they fly.

In plain terms: the flying bee removes water by spitting drops of nectar onto her tongue and letting the wind dry them.

The bee flies fast through the air. The wind moves over her face. She pushes the nectar out of her honey stomach. A small drop sits on her tongue. The fast wind hits the wet drop. The water floats away into the air.

She swallows the drop. Then she brings up a new drop. She does this over and over. She acts like a tiny bubble machine.

This removes a lot of water. The bee does this before she even reaches the hive 3. This saves the hive a lot of time. The nectar is already thick when she gets home.

The Sour Shield

Honey has a second secret trick. Honey acts like a sour lemon. Lemons have a lot of acid. Acid is what makes lemons taste sour.

Germs hate acid. They cannot live in strong acid. Honey is also full of acid. We measure acid with a number called pH.

In plain terms: honey has a very high acid level, which keeps it safe from germs.

We do not taste the sour acid in honey. The sweet sugar hides the sour taste. But the acid is always there.

The strong acid acts like a shield. It stops germs from growing inside the wax cells. Because it is dry and sour, honey never goes bad 2.

Medicine from Bees

Honey is a safe food for the bees. It is also a safe food for us. You can eat honey that is very old. It will still taste good.

Long ago, people did not have modern medicine. They used honey to heal wounds. Doctors still put honey on cuts today. The dry honey pulls water out of the germs. The sour acid destroys the germs. The cut heals faster 2.

Here are the three reasons honey lasts forever:

• It has very little water.
• It has a strong acid shield.
• The bees seal it tight in wax cells.

The bees work hard to make this magic food. They seal it safely. The food waits for winter. Soon, we will meet the bees who eat it. We will meet the whole hive family!

Key Terms

• Moisture content 1 — The amount of water inside a food or object.
• Bacteria 2 — Tiny germs that need water to live and can make food rot.
• Acid 4 — A sour chemical found in lemons and honey that stops germs from growing.