Natures wonders: honeybee antibiotic honey (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, February 18, 2021, 14:56 (1372 days ago) @ David Turell

Honey dos not spoil ever; it kills any organism that tries it:

https://evolutionnews.org/2021/02/put-some-of-this-on-that-wound-honey/

"Unlike most biological substances, one can leave honey in the cupboard at room temperature for centuries without it spoiling. Its antimicrobial property explains why Samson didn’t get sick when he tasted honey that a beehive had left in the carcass of a lion.

***

"Why does this substance seem to have an eternal shelf life? Natasha Geiling writes in Smithsonian Magazine:

"The answer is as complex as honey’s flavor — you don’t get a food source with no expiration date without a whole slew of factors working in perfect harmony.

"Those factors include pH, viscosity, hydrogen peroxide, enzymes added by honeybees, and sugar. Honey is, essentially, sugar — but not your typical table sugar. A special sugar called methylglyoxal appears to be responsible for its antibiotic properties. A paper in PubMed says, “Relief of pain, a lower incidence of hypertrophic scar and postburn contracture, low cost and easy availability make honey an ideal dressing in the treatment of burns.”

***

"Honey did not invent itself; it is a biological wonder made by honeybees. The manufacturing process involved, from hive to flower to honeycomb, involves design at many levels. The honeybee must have navigation and sensory equipment to find suitable nectar. It must collect the nectar and pollen and transport it back. An individual bee also has a “waggle dance” language to communicate the location to other bees. And the chemical processing inside the bee is “magical,” says Geiling in the Smithsonian article. She quotes Amina Harris, a pollination expert at UC Davis:

"But there is certainly a special alchemy that goes into honey. Nectar, the first material collected by bees to make honey, is naturally very high in water — anywhere from 60-80 percent, by Harris’ estimate. But through the process of making honey, the bees play a large part in removing much of this moisture by flapping their wings to literally dry out the nectar. On top of behavior, the chemical makeup of a bees stomach also plays a large part in honey’s resilience. Bees have an enzyme in their stomachs called glucose oxidase. When the bees regurgitate the nectar from their mouths into the combs to make honey, this enzyme mixes with the nectar, breaking it down into two by-products: gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide. “Then,” Harris explains, “hydrogen peroxide is the next thing that goes into work against all these other bad things that could possibly grow.'”

Comment: There are many steps in making honey. N ot by chance. The process was designed.