How is honey formed?

Bees say that beautiful gifts are flowers that bring me sweetness.

Nectar is secreted by nectaries located in flowers or tissues outside flowers, among which nectaries in flowers are the most common types of nectaries. Nectar is the reward provided by plants to flower visitors, and it is also an important trait that affects the behavior of flower visitors. Bees collect nectar and brew it into honey.

Nectar contains sugars, amino acids, protein, and? Inorganic ions, lipids, Phenols, alkaloids, terpenoids and other chemical components, but as a whole, they can be regarded as aqueous solutions of sugars.

The composition of nectar varies with the species of nectar plants. Generally speaking, the concentration of sugar in nectar is higher than phloem, xylem and plant juice, and the total sugar content is between 3% and 80%.

The sugar content of nectar varies with plant species, weather, microclimate and soil moisture. Judging from the composition of nectar, the water content is generally 30%-70%, the sugar substance is 9%-60%, and other substances are 1%-2%. Sucrose accounts for one-third and invert sugar accounts for two-thirds.

phenols

Many plant nectar contains phenols. Phenols in nectar often make nectar show certain colors, such as red, yellow, amber, brown, black and so on. It has been found that the nectar of 68 species of plants (involving 20 genera 16 families) is colored nectar. Studies have shown that phenols are also the odor substances of most nectar.

These odor compounds can not only attract pollinators, natural enemies or repel honey thieves, but also have certain defensive functions (antibacterial effect or as signal molecules of predators or parasites).

Montenegro et al. used high performance liquid chromatography to detect phenolic compounds in honey of Gleditsia sinensis to further test its ecological function. The results show that phenolic compounds in nectar have strong antibacterial and antioxidant abilities.

In addition, because of the fluorescence of phenolic compounds, people think that phenolic compounds in nectar can be used as marker molecules of plant origin, and the relationship between plant nectar and pollinators can be studied by using their fluorescence.

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