Where was the world’s oldest honey found? We thought it would be fun to look at the three oldest known honey finds in the world as of September 2019. Just think, these honeys can still be eaten today because antimicrobial honey never goes bad. The world’s oldest known references to collecting honey are from the 8,000 y

  • Today@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Bees are very cool! I had a beekeeper come to my house yesterday to remove bees from my water meter box. It was a very young hive - couple of weeks - a little bigger than a cantaloupe. He left me the honey and said it would have a higher water content/shorter shelf life because it was new. The bees flap their wings over it to help evaporate the water.

  • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Can have anti-microbial properties. In the American Civil War it was used as a wound dressing. And this was actually a very good idea.

      • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        While bee populations have taken hits, media reports of their likely extinction are very overblown. Most of the bees are still there, and the problem was first identified like 20 years ago.

        Saving an important insect population is fairly doable. Don’t let the clickbait get you down.

    • GeeseTeeth@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is true!

      This in large part because honey is mostly sugar, this means it has very high osmotic potential (put simply, making it incredibly good at sucking up water, because water diffuses into it very easily)

      It’s also exactly why it lasts so long

      • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Ahhh, I didn’t know that was the mechanism. So an extremely thick sucrose gel might have similar properties.

    • Musicgasm@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It’s still used to today in dressings. There is a brand of honey “medihoney” that we get at the hospital I work at.

  • Overzeetop@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Iirc, Constantine was preserved in a giant bay barrel of honey. On learning this, I felt it would have been quite the marketing opportunity to sell off small vials as “A taste of the empire!”

  • lambetti@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    As a beekeeper,I’m love reading these kind of posts.

    Raw honey, (which mean’s that it hasn’t been filtered (it can be screened, to remove bigger pieces), and hasn’t been pasteurized) has some great healing properties.

    Filtering removes the propolis and pollen, both which can be beneficial. Heating kills off the microbes (good guys!).

    Look up propolis for some interesting read on its anti microbial, anti fungal and anti viral properties.

    • mohKohn@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      too much of anything is bad for life. Sugar water has much the same problem, or extremely salty water. The problem is osmotic pressure.

      Roughly, the natural state of things is spread evenly, so all that sugar outside the cell finds its way inside (unless the cell pumps it out). But too much inside the cell can disrupt the other processes of the cell, or even rupture the cell walls.

      Iirc,Osmosis, with water rather than sugar, is also the effect that makes your hands prune when they’re in water for too long.