Invertase

Definition

Added from the bee's glandular secretions as nectar is passed between workers. It converts most of the nectar's sucrose into the two simple sugars that dominate finished honey. The enzymatic change is what makes honey a genuinely different substance from evaporated nectar, and it is why the legal definition of honey turns on what bees do to it.

Guide records that discuss this

• Why different bees make different honeyNectar is only the raw material. What reaches the jar has been through a specific animal's crop, enzymes, evaporation behaviour and storage vessel — and change the animal and you change the product.
• The enzymes in honeyHoney is the only common food that arrives carrying the enzymes of the animal that made it. Two of them made the honey, one defends it, and all of them are read in a laboratory as a record of how it has been treated.