Ambrose did more tests. He found higher aluminum content in some of the blue flowers. Specifically, flowers on the Coastal Plain were slurping more aluminum out of the soil than in other places around the state. In the hive, that aluminum content reacts with the acidity being added by the house bees as they turn the nectar into honey. The amount of acidity, Ambrose believes, plays a role in creating blue honey.
Ambrose concluded that some of that aluminum ended up in the flowers’ nectar, was transferred to the hive, then added to the bees’ acidic digestive fluid to make blue honey.
