The Process of Obtaining Honey
Honey is made by female worker honeybees that obtain nectar from flowers Spring through Fall. Bees that fly out to forage for nectar return to the hive and place nectar in the wax cells with a bit of pollen. They then wait for the moisture content to reduce to 18.6% humidity. Then the bees cap the cells with wax to preserve the honey as their future sister's food for the winter (worker bees only live about 6 weeks). They need about 50 lbs of honey and pollen to survive the winter - or else they starve to death.
Bees will make other sources of sugar like sodas, syrup, etc. into honey as well, which we call "Funny Honey." Beekeepers do not sell or consume Funny Honey because it is not made from flower nectar, but other sugar additives. Manufactured honey can also be adulterated or processed at higher temperatures with high fructose corn syrup and other added sugars that are clearly not honey but look the same.
"Funny Honey" can, however, be purchased from grocery stores or imported from other countries, which is why the price is less that $1 per pound. Given the effort and supplies required, raw unfiltered and unprocessed honey made only by bees in the United States and harvested by local beekeepers is priced between $1-$2 by weight, not by fluid ounce.
Honey jar supplies, uncappers, strainers, filters, refractometer, frame holder
We can measure the humidity of honey using a refractometer
Honey is capped with wax by the bees when it reaches 18.6% humidity
A medium-sized honey frame with capped honey
Wax caps removed from the honey frames to loosen up the honey
4-frame honey extractor that uses centrifugal force to remove honey from the frames
Honey seeps down the walls of the honey extractor and flows into a double strainer to remove any wax. Pollen and proteins in the honey pass through the strainer and make it into the jar.
One honeybee colony can produce 100 pounds of honey in a year