Beeyond the Hive Colorado Honey

Over the last couple of weeks I have noticed that my energy level consistently plummeted in the midst of my morning workouts. I finally slapped myself silly once or twice…even three times perhaps…and realized that I was forgetting to eat my dose of honey before I headed off to the gym! See…even a girl who grew up eating honey every day tends to forget that I should be eating my honey for other reasons than for the pure delightful taste! I needed energy! Stat!

Honey is a dense, calorie-packed food-about 60 calories per tablespoon. For athletes in need of a last-minute burst of instant muscle fuel, this is great news! Even better is the fact that invertase, a digestive enzyme secreted in the bee’s stomach, has already broken down the sucrose in the nectar into fructose and dextrose (also know as glucose), two monosaccharides, or simple sugars, that can be instantly absorbed into the bloodstream. Interestingly enough, invertase is the same enzyme produced by the human pancreas to break down sucrose- the “sugar” of table sugar-into usable glucose.

To get this honey buzz, try adding a spoonful of honey to your water bottle when biking, running, or working out. Keep drinking after your workout too because honey can help muscles recuperate and restore glycogen levels! Honey also includes antioxidants as well as trace amounts of numerous vitamins and minerals, including potassium, niacin, thiamin, riboflavin, and pantothenic acid.

Moral of the story…get your buzz on to help you throughout the day! Whether you are an athlete trying to push yourself to the next level or a mother of a few tikes that burns her calories by chasing them around all day long you can find that extra source of energy you need right from your honey bottle! Give it a squeeze and feel the buzz!

I get a heap of emails everyday with questions relating to raw, unprocessed and unfiltered honey. Here is our explanation and our thoughts on the subject! Hope you find this very helpful!

Several honeys out on the market can be labeled as “raw” or “uncooked” honey. As anyone who’s ever tried to scrape a spoon through a jar of cold honey knows, honey has to be kept warm during the bottling process.

In a hive, the honey is naturally kept at a temperature between 92-95 degrees F…just a few degrees under human body temp. Many beekeepers agree that honey can be heated between 112-120 degrees without any significant change in flavor, aroma, or texture. This is warm enough to keep the honey moving but not so hot as to cook it. Heating the honey beyond 120 degrees can destroy some of its trace vitamins as well as destroy some of the volatile elements of taste and aroma.

Here at Beeyond the Hive we follow a minimal method that our family has used for many generations. As a rule, raw honey is usually minimally processed and we follow that rule to a tee! We only gently heat the honey in order to keep it moving through our machines as well as filter the honey with a cheesecloth. We still hand bottle every single jar! As a result of our madness, the honey retains more individual characteristics than those found in regular commercial honeys! We guarantee the the best honey available!

Next topic of discussion….Can honey really be organic? Stay tuned!