Honey and its physical, mechanical and biological properties as well as a brief history - by Michael Armitage

Honey and its physical, mechanical and biological properties as well as a brief history - by Michael Armitage

For the last 150million years, honey has been produced by bees. It is guessed that we humans have been taking and consuming it for the last 15,000 years.
It’s a substance that when held in an air tight container, will never spoil. King tuts tomb had it after 2000 years and was still eatable.
It takes 2million flowers to make just a pound of it.
Without bees doing their stuff, 80% of the US would be without fruit, vegetables and seeds ect.
Honey bees transform nectar into honey by a process of regurgitation and evaporation. (So they basically vomit it back up eww)
They store it as a primary food source in wax honeycombs inside the beehive. Honeycomb itself is fascinating, as over many generations, it has been a part of evolution with the bees, probably through trial and error.
Many scientists believe that bees can comprehend and calculate different angles (as well as understanding the curvature of the earth).
Honeycomb had to be designed to just be big enough for a bee to fit inside, but also double up as a storage unit for nectar to ripen and turn into honey. Then it has to be considered what the honeycomb would be made of, now the easiest possible option for bees was wax, which the can secrete from their bodies. However, wax is difficult for them to make and it is a 8:1 ratio of honey needed to be consumed, to the amount of wax that the bee produces, so it has to be used sparingly. Also, for the bees, they have to be able to store as much honey in as little space as possible. At first thought, circles would be seen as the perfect shape, because it uses the least amount of wax and stores the most honey. However, circles put together have gaps between them and this is a waste of space. So, the closest shape to a circle (that’s possible to make easily) that doesn’t waste space is the shape the bee really choose… The hexagon.

Most microorganisms do not grow in honey because of its low water activity of 0.6.
However, honey sometimes contains dormant...

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