Sweet secretion from glands or nectaries that is processed by bees.
The first sweetener used by humans, honey has long been associated with pleasure and happiness: in the Old Testament, for example, the Promised Land of the Israelites is said to be flowing with milk and honey. The word honey itself is likewise of ancient origin, ultimately deriving from an Indo-European source that meant pale yellow, the colour of honey. The earliest reference to honey in English dates back to the ninth century, and since then the word has been used to form dozens of compounds, including honeycomb and honeymoon. With honeycomb, dating back to the eleventh century, the comb originally referred to the parallel “plates” suspended from the roof of a beehive and which, viewed from the side, line up like the teeth of a comb; later on, the word also came to describe the hexagonal cells that the bees build on the surfaces of these plates. With honeymoon, dating back to the mid sixteenth century, the word arose from the perception that marriage is sweet at first—as sweet as honey—but then, like the moon, wanes and grows dim; this sardonic connotation persists in the phrase the honeymoon’s over, but for the most part the word is now used without its original, ironic overtone. As a term of endearment—a synonym, in other words, for snookums, pookie, and sweet-baboo—honey dates back to at least the mid fourteenth century.
A sweet thick liquid substance produced by bees via the enzymatic digestion of the sucrose in nectar into fructose and glucose. The honey’s color and flavor are determined by the flowers from which the nectar was obtained. Honey has been used by humans as a food since ancient times. Honey is composed of mostly fructose and glucose with a typical moisture content of about 17%. It is unsafe for human infants to consume honey because it can contain Clostridium botulinum spores. This is usually not an issue for older individuals, as their stomach acid is sufficient to inhibit the growth of this organism.
This describes the sugary liquid known as honey, which is gathered by bees from the flowers they visit and then stored within their honeycombs.
Honey is a natural liquid sweetener produced by bees from collected flower nectar. The flavor of honey is influenced by the types of flowers the bees collect the nectar from, with each type of honey having a distinct taste. For example, clover honey has a different taste than honey made from garden flowers. Honey can be used as a sweetener in cooking and baking, and is also enjoyed on its own as a spread or a sweetener in tea or coffee.