Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which ais the honey bee. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies, especially for the larvae. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primarily floral nectar) or in less well-known methods, secretions from other insects. This refinement takes place both within individual bees, through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, and during storage in the hive, through water evaporation that concentrates the honey's sugars until it is thick and viscous.
Honey for human consumption is collected from wild bee colonies, or from the hives of domesticated bees. The honey produced by honey bees is the most familiar to humans, thanks to its worldwide commercial production and availability. The husbandry of bees is known as beekeeping or apiculture, with the cultivation of stingless bees usually referred to as meliponiculture.
While many types of honey are mostly considered only as food, it also has numerous medicinal effects due to its unique composition and has therefore been used in folk medicine for thousands of years. For example, honey can be used in the treatment of infected wounds, as its high sugar content deprives germs of the necessary water. It can also promote blood circulation in the body, which can reduce the risk of strokes and heart attacks.
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- While honey is a popular food worldwide, there are also some types of honey that are not suitable for human consumption. Rhododendron honey, for example, is known as "mad honey" because it contains grayanotoxins, which can cause hallucinations in a human in low doses and is toxic in large doses.
- Aside from being used as food, honey is also used to make a type of fermented beverage known as mead.
- On a related note, although it is not exactly a type of honey, Royal jelly is a secretion produced by honey bees fed to certain larvae to turn them into queen bees.
- Both Honey Bee Liminals and Honeypot Ant Liminals lactate honey instead of milk, and like Pans, Satyrs, Milk-producing Minotaurs, and Dairy Breed Centaurs, they need to be "milked" regularly, or else their breasts will expand to the point of extreme discomfort and even outright pain.[1]
- While the Honey Bee Liminals in Chapter 89 produce honey in their breasts, the Honey Bee Woman in Chapter 53 produced instead royal jelly in her breasts. Since their insectoid counterparts only produce royal jelly in real life under certain circumstances, it can be assumed that also Honey Bee Liminals in Monster Musume also produce mainly honey and only occasionally royal jelly in their breasts. The Honey Bee Liminal shop Bee Hive in Chapter 89 can be an indication of this, as royal jelly is also sold there in addition to honey according to the advertising signs.
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