More Than Merely Delicious!
You may be curious as to why honey has such a rich, storied tradition of being used in folk medicine ranging from treating wounds, to stomach ailemnts and even helping cure loneliness 💘
Honey has been adored and sought after by daring humans long before recorded history, so looking back we can see a kind of "mythology" has formed around this miraculous substance that our collective cultures have gone to great lengths indeed to enjoy through the ages.
However, today we are interested in the verifiable benefits of honey! We know that it's an excellent source of energy, containing many different types of sugar, and other materials such as pollen (but definitely not limited to only pollen!), with the overall composition varying dramatically between hives and seasons depending on where the bees have been visiting!
Fun fact: bees will eat many sweet substances besides flower nectars, and this has led to them creating some interesting results including blue honeys and red honeys! (link: Facebook)
Aich Too Oh Too! ⚛
You probably have heard of hydrogen peroxide (one of many peroxides, but an important one), this is a chemical compound with a very wide range of uses ranging from being used as a sanitizing agent, to hair bleaching, horticulture, a general houshold cleaning solution, acne treatment, a rocket propellent (seriously!), it goes on and on.
The chemical formula is simple: h2o2, two hydrogen and two oxygen, a molecule similar to water (h2o), but with an additional oxygen atom in the picture and the hydrogen atoms not functioning quite the same.
You will find h2o2 everywhere, including occurring naturally in the human body. If by now you're wondering why you're currently reading about hydrogen peroxide, it's because it is found in honey! 🤯
But Why?
Remember when we said hydrogen peroxide is used as a sanitizing agent? Bees like to keep it clean. We mean real clean!
Imagine a cramped and humid hive environment where bees work and dance (we implore you: look up "bee waggle dance") and sing (what we humans like to call "buzzing"!) together in very close quarters every hour of the day. Submarines are more roomy!
Not only are their bodies in close proximity most of the time, but also there's all this very sweet energy and nutrient rich honeycomb all over the place! It's the perfect opportunity for something nefarious and ravenous to creep in and eat AND EAT until there's nothing left!
The stuff of nightmares: fungi are incredibly resilient, spectacularly diverse in environmental adaptations, almost unstoppable at times, and may have in fact had a critical role in the untimely downfall of the dinosaurs based on some findings!
So what is a busy beehive to do when time is precious, and it's hard enough fighting off invading wasps and other insectoid threats and even hungry marauding bears?Clean as you go! 🧼
Honey is naturally well fortified against most pathogenic threats. It contains very little moisture, such that when it's exposed to mere air, it will readily absorb moisture (that h2o stuff) directly from the air, which will subsequently alter its composition in various ways depending on the circumstances.
This is partly why honey has seen great success as a preserving medium, it's simply too dry of an environment to allow the growth of many things such as fungi and other opportunistic pathogens.
In order to keep honey as pure as possible and as secure as possible, it's encased in these hexagonal looking cells made of beeswax that we all know and love: honeycomb!!
Ohhh yes, bees go to tremendous lengths to clean and sanitize the honey and then store it in air tight containment units. Just imagine all the energy and time and materials spent building the beeswax for each small unit of honey! They could easily just leave all of the honey in one convenient location, a big pool of liquid happiness!
But no, that would simply be too great of a risk, to provide an invader the opportunity to grow without limit from within the hive and potentially eat it from the inside out!
So, the indefatigable bees build and build and build until every single drop of (seriously!) hard earned honey is as snug as a bug 🐛
So Tasty!
But It Goes Much Further
Honey will usually contain some portion of hydrogen peroxide which, as mentioned above, is a sanitizing agent. As mentioned in "Re-Examining the Role of Hydrogen Peroxide in Bacteriostatic and Bactericidal Activities of Honey" (Brudzynski et al., 2011), it's believed to be a major part of the defensive capabilities of honey, and the levels of this substance can vary considerably from batch to batch, hive to hive, and so on, as it all depends on many factors such as where the bees have been foraging.
The hydrogen peroxide is produced due to an enzyme naturally present in honey called glucose oxidase (if it has glucose in the name then you know it must have something to do with sugar!). When this enzyme is exposed to oxygen(found in air and also in water, hence the ability of fish to breathe!), it uses the resident glucose found in honey to produce h2o2(hydrogen peroxide) along with another Friend of the Hive called gluconic acid.
And this, friends, is believed to play a major role in why honey has actually historically been found to be beneficial in treating wounds: once the honey comes into contact with something containing a high amount of water such as blood, it dillutes and subsequently produces additional hydrogen peroxide all on its own simply due to the enzyme glucose oxidase.
To recap: water permeates into the honey as the super sweet and low moisture content stuff happily absorbs nearby water particles, which also brings along for the trip though the honey its good pal air which reacts with the glucose oxidase found in honey, and the enzymatic catalysis cleansing party begins! 🥳
Referring back to Burdzynski and crew's brilliant research, findings included: "A substantial correlation has been found between the level of endogenous hydrogen peroxide and the extent of inhibition of bacterial growth by honey. We have observed that in honeys with a high content of this oxidizing compound, bacteria cannot respond normally to proliferative signals and their growth remains arrested even at high honey dilutions.".
In other words, the bacteria have been shut down by the ingenious purification power of honey!
This incredible chemical engineering feat means that as honey absorbs excess moisture, for example from a very humid environment where the moisture is being rapidly absorbed directly from the air by the honey, the hydrogen peroxide is spontaneously formed to ensure that the honey and hive remains a place where foes fear to tread!
But Wait, There's More!
Much more in fact! Honey is in general slightly acidic (and this can of course vary a lot depending on the type), and this acidity provides yet another critical layer of defense against would be hive invaders. Remember our friend gluconic acid? As water levels (and therefore oxygen) levels increase, gluconic acid does as well, thereby maintaining a well fortified acidity defense!
As well, there are additional antimicrobial compounds found in honey, most naturally produced materials (for example veggies!) contain a host of these defensive compounds to make survival in a very hungry environment a possibility.
We will delve deeper into the fascinating biochemical mechanisms which make honey a lot more than just a source of tasty and easy to digest calories, please keep your antennae tuned in as we travel further along in our journey through the vast and mysterious and scrumptious Honeyverse! 🌌