How Do Bees Make Honey?
Honey bees making honey is no exception. Bees make honey and thank goodness they do. Honey bees are very industrious, their boss appears to be the queen honey bee and she gives birth to those who are responsible for the production line. She sends most of them out to work whilst they are still very young and each one of these bees is called a worker bee (female). If like me you absolutely adore honey because it keeps us so healthy you’ve always known that it is honey bees who make honey but weren’t sure how because you've never seen honey bees making honey. Honey bees collect enough flower nectars to make food for themselves also so they can survive harsh seasons such as winter. This seems only fair considering we have all the benefits of honey that the honey bees work so hard to make. By collecting enough flower nectars for the bees to make honey, the honey bees help preserve their colony and also help to keep us fit and healthy too. But you’re still curious. You still want to know the answer to the question how do bees make honey? Hopefully this article will provide you with the answers. So How do bees make honey?Honey bees are sent off to collect flower nectars from plants which are everywhere due to previous honey bee pollination.Maybe this is where the saying "circle of life" originated from! The honey bees use their long hairy tongues also called a proboscis to drink the nectar from the plants and store it in their "honey stomachs". Seriously, that is what they are called. Once their honey stomachs are full (and this is only an eye dropper full and this takes quite some time as they drink from hundreds of flower nectars, they continue the honey making conversion process with inversion to break down the enzymes in the natural sugars. When the honey bees return to the honey bee hives they start the next stage of honey making. The flower nectars they have collected is made up of about 80 percent water with some complex natural sugars. If these nectars are left alone in their most natural state, the nectar would inevitably undergo fermentation. So instead of wasting the sugars, the honey bees would store them in an efficiently usable state by converting these natural sugars into making honey which they store in a honey comb. Once the honey has been made it contains only about 14 to 18 percent water. This is also known as raw honey. This honey also contains bits of pollen and Propolis which they use to keep their hives clean and hygienic. The pure flower nectars contain much more than that. If you measured it pound for pound, you’d realize that honey provides a better (and not to mention, greater) energy source than nectar. The actual process of transforming the pure nectar into honey begins with team work. I will never forget when one of my kids asked the question "how do bees make honey"? I really laughed! This is how bees make honey: There are basically two groups; the older worker bees, and the younger honey bees. The older worker bees fly out from their hives and search for flowers that are rich in nectar. In short, they are the designated foragers. When they’ve found the appropriate flower nectars, they begin to suck and drink the nectar using their straw-like tongue which is quite long and hairy. They store the nectar in their honey stomach (it’s a special stomach that acts as a storage compartment for the collected nectar). They proceed to do this with other flowers until their special stomach is full. Inside the special stomach, a process called inversion takes place. The enzymes inside break down the nectar’s complex sugars into simpler ones, avoiding the high probability of them crystallizing. The older bees go back to the hive and disgorge the collected (and modified) nectar. Which they then give to the younger honey bees that will test and taste to see if they think it is suitable. The younger hive honey bees are given the task of converting the collected nectar into pure honey. When done, they regurgitate the inverted nectar into the top of a cell of a honey comb. Once they’ve placed them they begin to fan the nectar by flapping their wings furiously onto the cell. Honey bees have four wings which comes in very useful considering the amount of beating with their wings they have to do! The fanning process begins to evaporate any remaining water. This process of how bees make honey must exhaust the honey bees as it can take anything from six to twenty four hours to complete this action! Little perfectionists aren't they? I feel exhausted just thinking about "How do bees make honey! The evaporation allows the sugars to thicken and it then becomes raw honey. This is real raw honey and when we get our hands on it we can all enjoy the benefits of eating honey without the hassle of actually making honey just by buying a jar! When they are happy with their honey produce they will seal it just as any finished product is packaged but honey bees use bee wax. How do bees make honey?........with a whole lot of effort thats for sure! Organic honey farmers are extremely careful with their honey bees and equipment for the purposes of selling delicious organic honey. If anyone ever asks you the question which they might…….. "How do bees make honey?" You will sound like an expert when you give them this very simple reply. Interestingly, one single worker honey bee only produces about 1/12th of one teaspoon of honey in its entire lifetime. And it takes literally thousands of other worker honey bees to produce more than 200 pounds of honey. Bees making honey also have to fly the equivalent of almost twice around the world to make just 1lb, that is a single honey bee!and in reality this could never happen! Now you know the answer to How do bees make honey, you'll probably want to know Why? Please click on the link below for the answer.
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