Trade Swiss - Honey

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Honey - Honig

The origin of the word: honey is associated with the bee name: bee in Latin is mel; in Greek it is - melissa. Honey in Sanskrit is madhu, in Latin mel, in French - miel, in Greek - meli, in Slavian- med, miod ir t.t. In few languages it is different: in German - Honig., in English - honey; in Swedish - honning., in Dutch - boning., in Armenian - megra; inTatar - bal. Remarkably enough in Lithuanian and Latish its name is similar to the name of far away country Iran - modu. The origin the word as well as instruction about its use has reached us from ancient times and people. Already the great Greek doctor Hippocrates (377 before Christ) has indicated that wine and honey are very important for humans. Before our times natural bee honey was used as sweetener for food. Actually, honey production appeared comparatively recently. Together with it legends and descriptions were accumulating how to use honey at home for treatment. Doctors advise very exhaustively how to use it. However, some country people having unquestionable authenticity are noteworthy enough. Quantity of honey produced by one bee colony is sufficient for a family of 3 to 4 persons per year while surplus honey may be sold. Usually, two kilograms of honey per person annually are sufficient.Genuine bee honey is a sweet product which is produced by bees using nectar found in plant blossoms. This matter is picked by bees, then changed in their bodies and placed into combs, where it ripens and becomes genuine bee honey. Any sweet matter taken by bees from other sources is not genuine honey. For example, bees produce honey using syrup ant it suits them as food very well, but it is not genuine. It is generally regarded as non-natural or faked honey.Bees produce honey using nectar. Nectar is sweet liquid, which is secreted by plants during flowering in their blossoms. Nectar is found in the plant blossom nectar cells.
The most important part of nectar is sugar. Nectar consists of three kinds of sugar:
1) Sacharoze, 2) Dextrose, 3) Laevulose.
Among sugars found sacharoze (or cane sugar) prevail. Nectar composition is not the same for all blossoms. In some of them, for example of the chestnut, there is only sacharoze, in rape blossoms only dextrose (grape sugar), but in the most cases plant blossoms contain all three kinds of sugar.
Under action of the ferment invertase sacharoze splits into d e x t r o s e (grape sugar or glucose) and l e v u l o se (fruit sugar or fructose). It happens when nectar gets into honey ventricle of the bee. After some time almost total sacharoze is split and in honey almost only grape and fruit sugar. Nectar also includes smaller amounts of others substances. For example, d e x t r i n is substance non-soluble in water and similar to starch; m e l i t o se –is sugar not digestible for bees; m a n i t o – sweet sort of alcohol.
Difference between nectar and honey is clearly seen comparing white cover nectar and honey compositions.
Honey consists of about 19 percents of water and 81 percents of dry material. Carbohydrates are most abundant in honey. The greatest part of carbohydrates constitutes glucose - about 34 percent, and fructose (about 40 percent). Honey also includes 1.5-5 percent sacharoze, 5-10 percent melitose and about 20 percent other complex sugars. In honey quantities of inverted sugars - glucose and fructose depend on from what plants honey was gathered. For example, buckwheat honey has about 71.4 % of inverted sugar, while heather – 73.8 %, lime – 74.7 %. Sugar quantity is influenced by the soil properties and the age of blossoms and climate conditions. At the end of flowering sugar amount decreases in blossoms. It was established that human organism assimilates main honey carbohydrates - glucose and fructose much better than sacharoze and other sugars. Glucose from digestive system gets straight into blood and fructose is transformed into glucose. These hydro carbonates, when in human body tissues, become the main source of energy. Honey has substances the human organism needs: iron, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, vitamins B_I;B₂,B_fi, C, PP and pantotene acid. Vitamin quantities are too low to be able to satisfy needs of the human organism.
The same might be said also about nitride materials, quantities of which in honey reach only 0.3 %. As for amino acids, honey has only phenylalanine and prolin, while there are only traces of others. Thus, honey is not the source of mineral substances, or vitamins, or albumen. Honey is first of all the source of carbohydrates having great caloric values. In addition, honey includes ferments, fitoncides, some hormones, bactericides and aromatic substances.

Varieties of honey

Bees produce honey of nectar gathered and melliferous dew. Honey of nectar from blossoms of one kind of plants, is called monofloric, while gathered from various plants is called polyfloric. The biological effect by monofloric honey being positive is diverse enough.
Lime honey- brightly yellow, nice lime blossom scent. It is used to cure caught cold and other diseases (tonsillitis, faringytis, laryngitis and bronchitis), liver and kidney diseases and purulent wounds.

Raspberry honey– brightly coloured, nice yet strong scent. It is used to cure caught cold and similar ailments.

Dandelion honey – gold coloured, somewhat bitter taste, stronger scent. It is recommended against pain, respiratory inflammations and to decrease abnormal gastric juice acidity.

Rape honey – white or brightly yellowish, weak nice scent, somewhat bitter taste. It is used to lessen increased gastric juice acidity to cure liver diseases.

Clover honey is brightly yellowish, almost white, soft nice taste. It is used to increase gastric juice acidity if too low, to cure liver diseases.

Heather honey- yellow with reddish taint, having strong, similar to heather blossoms scent, somewhat bitter taste. It is used to cure kidney, gall bladder, prostate diseases.

Buckwheat honey - dark, reddish or almost brown, comparatively sharp taste and scent. I has more iron and albumen. Therefore, it is used as means against anaemia, it softens occurring during child growth pains and sooths nerve system, makes organism stronger.

Meadow honey - is polyfloric, that is, gathered from various plant blossoms having nice taste, yellow or yellowish reddish colour. It contains much aromatic substances, considerable quantities of vitamins of Band C groups. I may be helpful for persons weakened by diseases and as means against catching cold.

Melliferous honey - originating from melliferous dew differs from blossom honey. It has more dextrines, mineral substances and sacharoze, less inverted sugar, compared with nectar honey. Melliferous dew has much alkaline metals -potassium and sodium salts. Melliferous dew honey has less water and more albumen and dextrine, it is 2 to 3 times denser as blossom honey. For bee winter food melliferous dew honey is not suitable, while for humans it very useful.
Some rarely occurring honey types have toxic or harmful properties. Such honey can be gathered from heather family plants - rhododendron, azalea and andromeda. Toxic honey components are acetilandromedol and other rare alkaloids and glycosides. Such honey is not allowed as food.