How Bees Make Honey
Honey is one of nature’s most remarkable products. What is even more amazing is the story of how bees make honey. Yes, I am talking about our friends – the honey bees (Apis mellifera). How can these tiny insects perform such an impressive feat? In this article, I share with you each step of how honey is made. I hope it will deepen your appreciation for these important pollinators.
Working as a beekeeper for many years, I am very familiar with the steps required to transform flower nectar into honey. Yet, each year the honey crop seems just as miraculous as the first. In fact, the hope for a honey harvest is why I started beekeeping in the first place.
How Honey is Made: Step by Step
Honey production doesn’t just happen in a day or two. Dedicated worker bees invest many hours of effort in the field and inside the hive.
The amount of honey a hive produces in a season depends on many factors. But, you will always find thousands of working bees at the core.
These are the steps of honey making:
- nectar collection
- transformation of nectar into honey ( transfer, enzyme action, evaporation)
- storage in cells & capping with wax
Nectar Collection: Step One
The older workers are the field bees that serve as foraging bees. They fly from the hive on every nice day looking for plant nectar.
Using her proboscis (or long tongue) to form a straw-like mouth structure – the worker bee sucks up sweet liquid nectar and stores it in a special organ located in her abdomen.
This structure is called a honey stomach (or crop). This is separate from the bee’s digestive stomach and is specifically designed for transporting nectar. (Honey is not bee vomit!)
An individual bee makes only a small amount of honey during her lifetime. Amazingly, a forager may visit up to 5,000 flowers in one day.
Transformation of Nectar into Honey
When the workers honey stomach is full (or she tires), she will return to the hive to transfer the nectar to a house bee.
While in the honey stomach, the honey making process has already began. Nectar starts to mix with special enzymes (produced by the bee).
This begins the breakdown of the complex sugars of raw nectar. But, inside the hive is where the true transformation of nectar into honey takes place.
Transfer
The forager bees return to the hive and pass the partially processed nectar to house bees. This process is called trophallaxis. It is rather interesting to see – the bees touch mouthparts and antennae.
Enzymes Added
Rather than a simple transfer of nectar, more enzymes are added during and after the transfer. One important enzyme bees produce is called “invertase”.
It helps break down the primary sugar of nectar (sucrose) into the simple sugars – fructose and glucose.
Other enzymes such as glucose oxidase are added to help create hydrogen peroxide and gluconic acid. The process continues as the chemical composition of the nectar is changing.
This complicated process contributes to honey’s antibacterial properties. It also gives honey its acidic Ph that prevents spoilage.
Evaporation
Plant nectar is watery and would spoil if stored in the comb for a period of time. The bees must evaporate this excess moisture.
While the enzyme action is taking place, house bees constantly manipulate the nectar, a drop of ripening nectar may be seen on her mandibles (jaw). (Similar to us blowing bubbles with bubble gum).
Exposed to the warm, dry air inside the hive, the moisture content begins to drop. Nectar that is in the drying process may be placed in droplets along the surface of comb.
Then, bees fan their wings to increase air flow through the hive to aid the drying process. When the moisture content of the honey has dropped from about 80% to 20%, we consider the transformation to be complete – our bees have made honey! Now, where to put it?
Storage – Capping the Cells
All of this honey made by the bees must be stored somewhere until it is needed. Inside the hive, there are sheets of honeycomb with thousands of hexagon shaped cells built by the bees.
Ripe honey is place in these wax cells and capped with a layer of fresh beeswax to protect it. This is now “capped honey” – the same as that we beekeepers harvest. But, this food is intended for the colony to use during the long cold Winter months.
Honey for Beekeepers
Because bees make more honey than they usually need, beekeepers can often enjoy harvesting honey from their hives.
Properly managed honey bee colonies should be able to produce enough for themselves and a share for the beekeeper. However, it is important for beekeepers to be responsible when taking a share of the harvest.
Taking honey from bees is not a bad thing if the beekeeper is knowledgeable and ethical. If you are considering becoming a beginner beekeeper – please learn how to be a good one.
FAQs
Honey bees do not build seasonal nest but live inside the hive all year. During the cold month when food is not available – the colony survives on stored honey. With enough stored food, the bees can survive until warm weather returns.
Plant nectar is the primary ingredient bees use to make honey. However, sometimes, they collect a sweet secretion of aphids called and make honeydew honey or forest honey.
Bee species that live as solitary individuals or have seasonal nests do not need to store food.
Most of the bees in the world are solitary insects. Therefore, most bees do not make honey.
Bees do not use pollen to make honey. But, raw honey may contain grains of pollen. Bees use pollen as a vital protein source needed to rear young.
No, wasps (and Yellow Jackets) do not make honey – they are primarily meat eaters.
Wasps will certainly enjoy stealing a sweet taste of anything, much like your soda at a picnic, but sweet food is not their primary diet.
Bumble bees store food (a honey substance) in the nest in small structures called pots.
However, because the bumble bee nest is small and does not overwinter as a family, the amount of honey produced is very small.
Yes, in some areas of the Southeast beekeepers do harvest a bit of purple honey. The reason for the color is a subject of debate in the beekeeping community – likely to do with nectar source.
A Final Word
The ability of bees to make honey is a remarkable feat. Honey bees would not survive Winter without stored food. Those that fail to store enough honey will likely not live to the new season. You can help honey bees and other important insects by practicing bee friendly gardening around your home.