Honey, which is the most important product of honeybees, has been accepted as one of the most precious nutrient for a long time. On the wall of one of the caves in Spain, there is the drawings from 13,000 BC of a neighbour who took honey from honeycomb. Fruit sugar, which is accumulated in the flowers by sunlight for decades, is the most important ingredient in honey’s composition,; Due to levulose, honey is even sweeter than sugar cane. Honeys may also contain the pure fragrances of apple, orange, clover and linden flowers. While table sugar has a single taste like salt, all honeys have its different specific distinct flavors.
Honey is the PUREST of all the foods. When well ripened, the sugar concentration is so high that any bacteria cannot survive in more than 1 or 2 hour(s). In a 3300 years old ancient tomb of an Egyptian Pharaoh family, blackened and hardened honey was found that did not lose its purity at all. Any cheat in honey is easily well detected as when it is diluted, it immediately deteriorates. The honey wax and the bee's own gland disposion cannot be replicated yet even by the most advanced technologies. The honey production by bees is a complicated process, where even the insect specialists could not yet fully depict how nectar became honey.
THE CLASSIFICATION of HONEYS:
Honeys’ classification can be made according to its Production, Color, Humidity, Source and Marketing Methods.
I. HONEYS AS PER THEİR SOURCES
a. Flower Honey (Nectar Honey)
As a result of the honey bee enriching and ripening in the honeycombs by mixing nectars collected from the flowers of plants by mixing them with substances secreted from special glands in their bodies; natural honey or flower honey (nectar honey) is obtained. The taste of the flower, in which the nectar is collected, is felt in the aroma of honey: Like orange flower honey, lime flower honey, clover honey, etc.
b. Secretion Honey (Pine Honey)
Secretion honeys are produced by the collection of sweet secretions of insects living on forest trees such as pine, oak, beech and spruce and named after the source from which they were obtained. The pine honey is the most important secretion honey type, which is highly produced at Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey.
c. Toxic Honey
This honey, which also named as the Mad Honey or Poisonous Honey, is produced by bees using poisonous substances of the plants such as rhododendron and datura. People who eat this honey may experience disorders such as dizziness, nausea, difficulty in seeing, humming, sweating, even fainting.
d. Artificial Honey
This low quality honey is produces with or without adding starch sugar or syrup with more or less inversion of sucrose.
e. Feeding honey
This low quality honey is produced in places where there are not enough many flowers. Some honeymen feed beesunnaturally by sugary liquids placed around the hives The taste of such honey is smooth, its colors are clear. The amount of sucrose is high (more than 10%).
f. Expres honey
To increase the medical value of honey, Expres Honey" is obtained through feeding the bees with liquids ccontaining different additives. These honeys can be used for treatment purpose.
Iı. Honeys As Per Moısture Levels
This classification is divided in three categories: 1st, 2nd and 3rd. class honeys.
First class honeys are of very low moisture prıducts and have the highest value. This feature is considered as the most important quality criterion in honey to be stored. 1st has the lowest water rates than the 2nd and the 3rd class honeys and they may contain 17%, 18% and 20% respectively.
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