Content
- How bees produce honey
- how the bee makes the honey
- because bees make honey
- Types of bee honey
- all about bees
honey is a animal product that the human being has used since life in caves. In the past, excess honey was collected from wild hives. Currently, bees have undergone a certain degree of domestication and their honey and other derived products can be obtained through beekeeping. Honey is not only a potent and energetic food, it also has medicinal properties.
Want to know more? In this article by PeritoAnimal you can find out how bees make honey, as we will detail the process they follow to prepare it and also what it is used for. Find out below!
How bees produce honey
the honey collection starts with a dance. A worker bee goes in search of flowers and, during this search, it can travel long distances (more than 8 km). When she finds a potential food source, she quickly goes to her hive to notify the companions to help her collect as much food as possible.
The way the bees inform others is a dance, through which they are able to know with high precision which direction the food source is, how far away it is and how abundant it is. During this dance, the bees vibrate your abdomen in such a way that they are able to say all this to the rest of the hive.
Once the group is informed, they head out to find the flowers. From them, bees can obtain two substances: o nectar, from the female part of the flower, and the pollen, which they collect from the male part. Next, we'll see what these two substances are for.
how the bee makes the honey
the bees use nectar to make honey. When they reach a flower rich in nectar, suck it with their proboscis, which is a tube-shaped oral organ. The nectar is held in special bags attached to the stomach, so if the bee needs energy to keep flying, it can take it out of the accumulated nectar.
When they cannot carry any more nectar, they return to the hive and, once they get there, the deposit in a honeycomb along with some salivary enzymes. With strong and sustained movements of their wings, the bees dehydrate the nectar through the evaporation of water. As we said, in addition to nectar, bees add special enzymes that they have in their saliva, necessary for the transformation into honey. Once the enzymes were added and the nectar was dehydrated, the bees close the honeycomb with a unique wax, produced by these animals thanks to special glands called wax glands. Over time, this mixture of nectar and enzymes is turned into honey.
Have you ever thought that honey production is a bee vomit? As you can see, part of it is but not only, because the transformation of nectar into honey is a external process to the animal. Nectar is not vomit either, as it is not a partially digested food, but rather a sugary substance from flowers, which bees are able to store in their bodies.
because bees make honey
Honey, along with pollen, is the food that bee larvae will ingest. Pollen collected from flowers is not directly digestible by bee larvae. It needs to be stored in honeycombs. Bees add salivary enzymes, honey to prevent air from entering and wax to seal the honeycomb. After a while, the pollen becomes digestible by the larvae.
honey provides glucose for larvae and pollen, proteins.
Types of bee honey
Ever wonder why there are different types of honey on the markets? Each species of plant produces nectar and pollen from consistency, smell and color many different. Depending on the flowers that the bees in a hive can access, the honey that will be produced will have a different color and flavor.
all about bees
bees are animals essential for the environment because, thanks to pollination, the planet's ecosystems remain consistent.
Therefore, we invite you to find out in another PeritoAnimal article: what would happen if the bees didn't disappear?
If you want to read more articles similar to how bees make honey, we recommend that you enter our Curiosities section of the animal world.