Garth wrote
 
> I would not alkalinise it though - I remember hearing that honey is
> naturally acetic - if the bees are not able to change it's ph they
> are likely to store it as alkaline honey and then the honey will eat  
> away at the wax turning it into soluble soapy stuff that may dissolve  
> into the honey and so on. Alternatively the bees may try for ages to  
> drop the pH of the honey and exhaust their internal supplues of H+
> ions giving one woozy bees with alkaline haemolymph (sort of similar  
> to bees taking too many tums). Even one teespoon of NaOH in a large
> drum of sugar soln would raise the pH to over 9 or 10.
 
 
Honey has a pH of around 3.5 to 4.  This makes it acidic and is one of the reasons why it has antimicrobial properties.
 
Trevor Weatherhead
AUSTRALIA