honey

详情

Honey is a sweet, viscous food substance made by honey bees and some related insects, such as stingless bees. Bees produce honey from the sugary secretions of plants or from secretions of other insects, by regurgitation, enzymatic activity, and water evaporation. Honey bees store honey in wax structures called honeycombs, whereas stingless bees store honey in pots made of wax and resin. The variety of honey produced by honey bees is the best-known, due to its worldwide commercial production and human consumption. Honey is collected from wild bee colonies, or from hives of domesticated bees, a practice known as beekeeping or apiculture. Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose, and has about the same relative sweetness as sucrose. Fifteen millilitres of honey provides around **0 kilojoules of food energy. It has attractive chemical properties for baking and a distinctive flavor when used as a sweetener.