Short answers, pulled from the story.
A foraging bee collects about 40 mg of liquid from more than one thousand flowers to fill its honey stomach. This cavity holds roughly half the weight of an unladen bee and requires over an hour of ceaseless work to collect enough nectar when it is plentiful.
Finished honey reaches a final water content of between 15.5% and 18%. This concentration creates a supercooled solution where sugar levels are far beyond the saturation point of water, halting all fermentation.
The first written records of beekeeping appear in ancient Egypt, where honey was used to sweeten cakes and as a base for unguents in hieroglyphs. A Mesolithic rock painting in a cave in Valencia, Spain, dating back at least 8,000 years, depicts two honey foragers collecting honey and honeycomb from a wild bees' nest using ladders or ropes.
On average, a hive produces about 65 lb of honey per year. Wild bee nests are sometimes located by following specific bird species such as the greater honeyguide bird in Africa.
The density of honey typically ranges between 1.38 and 1.45 kg/L at 20 C. Its viscosity increases very slowly with moderate cooling, and it may appear or even feel solid at -20 C while continuing to flow at very low rates.
The Dutch scientist Bernardus Adrianus van Ketel first demonstrated the antibacterial effects of honey in 1892. Several medical-grade honey products have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for use in treating minor wounds and burns.