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The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume IV - 2012 84 Organic Honey and Other Products Bees are categorized as “Industrial Insects” that provide numerous valuable economical products such as honey, beeswax, royal jelly, pollen, propolis, and bee’s venom. These products can be divided into two categories; 1. Products derived from raw material that bees collect from outside their hive such as honey, propolis and bee pollen. 2. Products created by bees based on bee physiology such as beeswax, royal jelly and bee venom. Organic Honey: Honey is derived from nectars of the wild fl owers and economic fruit trees, fl owers or other nectar sources such as honey dew that bees collect from aphids. This honey dew goes through chemical and physical process until it is transformed into honey stored inside a bee comb. How do bees produce their organic honey? After nectar that a bee collected from the fl owers moves down to its stomach, the bee’s salivary gland will produce enzyme for a metabolism process that converting glucose and fructose to invert sugar called laevulose, dextrose, and other types of sugar but only a little amount. This metabolism process begins from the bee fl ying back to its hive. While the bee is fanning, this would generate heat energy and activate enzyme activities as well as help burning and reducing moisture which accelerates the conversion of nectar to honey. When a bee worker arrives at its hive, it will spew the invert sugar from its mouth to another worker’s mouth that work in the comb to be stored in honey cells. This invert sugar is not complete honey since it still has high level of moisture or water (30-40%). In the evening when most workers are already back to their hive, they will help one another fanning to make the nectar evaporate until it is transformed to complete honey which contains only 20-25% of water. After honey production process is fi nished, workers will use beeswax to close the honey cells in order to store the honey for later consumption to generate energy for the bee’s daily life or during food shortage. Organic honey is pure natural honey without any pesticide, antibiotic, and other contaminants. True organic honey is obtained from bee farms located long distance Organic Honey of Thailand
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