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Honey is a useful product of beekeeping, which is necessary for the life of not only humans, but also bees. Shaggy workers begin an active collection of nectar in the spring, when the first flowers appear, and continue until late autumn. During this period, the bees make honey, which is necessary for a successful wintering.
Why do bees need honey
Honey is a nutritious product that is necessary for the full development of the bee colony. It is the main carbohydrate food that both adults and brood feed on. Forager bees can eat honey and pollen, but they need honey all the time, and pollen is a supplement. With an insufficient amount of sweet treats or when using artificial bait, bee colonies quickly die or leave their homes, taking food with them for several days.
The product is also used for feeding brood larvae. Young insects on the 4th day of life begin to consume a nutrient mixture consisting of honey, water and pollen. After birth, the queen bee also needs a sweet mixture for full development and procreation.
Bees make honey and honeycombs, as these products are an inexhaustible source for the bee colony and an integral part for brood rearing.
Bees produce a natural product from spring until late autumn to provide food for the family for the whole winter. After the onset of the first frost, the insects uncork the wax and eat a sweet treat that contains a large amount of calories, which make it possible to endure the winter cold.
How bees get honey
A bee family consists of a queen bee that lays eggs, scouts, guards, collectors, receivers and drones.
Hard workers collect sweet treats from honey plants – these can be flowers, shrubs, trees that bloom from early spring to late autumn. Before proceeding with the honey collection, scout bees fly out of the hive to determine the place of collection. Once discovered, they return to the bee house and relay the information to the worker bees. Insects give the bees a drop of nectar to determine the quality and make movements along the combs, showing the direction for flight.
After the signaling dance, the scouts go to the place where the nectar was found, dragging the gathering bees with them.
Where do bees collect honey?
Once the insects have found honey plants, they land on the flower and begin to recognize whether the flower has nectar or not, using taste buds located on the legs.
When pollen is found, they begin to collect it with a special goiter, sending it to the stomach. In one flight, the bee carries up to 45 g of sweet substance into the hive, but the greater the distance from the honey plants to the hive, the less pollen the worker bee will bring. This is due to the fact that during the flight the insect eats a small part of the nectar to replenish energy.
In a day, furry workers can fly up to 8 km, but long-distance flights are dangerous for them. The most productive distance is considered to be 2 km. When collecting pollen at such a distance, a hard worker is able to collect nectar from 12 hectares of a flowering field.
How bees make honey
In order to get 1 kg of sweet treat, a bee needs to fly about 10 million flowers. After returning home, the furry worker gets rid of the nectar, passing it on to the receiving bee for processing.
She, in turn, processes the nectar in the stomach, after the completion of the process, she begins to extend and lower her proboscis, releasing and hiding a drop of honey. The bee does this procedure 130 times. Next, the bee finds a free cell and carefully lays down a drop of goodies. The preparatory stage of honey preparation is over, it remains only for the bees to get rid of excess moisture and enrich the product with enzymes.
What is the name of the expansion of the bee’s esophagus, where honey is formed
The nectar collected by the bees is located in the honey goiter. Nectar collected by furry workers enters the goiter through the esophagus and remains there until the insect returns to the hive. Between the honey goiter and the digestive system is a valve that prevents the honey product from entering the digestive tract. After returning home, the insect regurgitates a portion of nectar from the honey goiter.
The amount of sweet treat that one bee can bring depends on the honey flower. If after visiting 100 flowers there is a lot of pollen, she returns home with a full honey goiter, with a load of 35 mg. The weight of a worker bee is 10 g, so the weight of the load can reach half the body weight of the insect.
How honey is made by bees
Bees get their honey from the pollen of honey plants. Collecting honey is a painstaking work that involves more than a thousand bees. The process of preparing a sweet treat takes place in several stages:
- After collecting pollen, the worker bee chews the nectar for a long time and thoroughly, adding enzymes to it that break down sugar into glucose and fructose. During processing, the insect adds saliva, which has an antibacterial effect, due to which the honey product is disinfected, does not sour, and is stored for a long time.
- After the worker bee brings the nectar to the hive, she passes it on to the receiving bee.
- Prepared honeycombs are filled with the finished product by 2/3 of the volume.
- In order to lower the humidity in the hive, raise the air temperature and turn the product into a viscous syrup, the bees begin to intensively flap their wings.
- When a new batch arrives, the receiving bees attach the nectar to the upper walls of the cells in small drops.
- After the work done, the honeycombs are sealed with wax, creating tightness. In the created vacuum, honey will reach full readiness.
Ripening process
The ripening of honey is a painstaking and lengthy process that turns nectar into a useful product. Collected pollen contains about 92% moisture, and high-quality honey should contain no more than 20% water.
During the ripening of the honey product, cane sugar is converted into fructose and glucose, which provide high nutritional value. In addition to the breakdown of sugar, when the delicacy ripens, polysaccharides are synthesized due to the action of enzymes produced by the insect’s body.
In the process of ripening sweet treats, other biochemical processes also occur, saturating the product with good taste, aroma and useful substances. The ripening time of the honey product depends on the strength of the family and climatic conditions. In cloudy weather, due to high humidity, the process is delayed.
What factors affect the beneficial properties and quality of honey
Bees make honey from nectar, so the quality of the product is affected by air humidity, plant type, climate and season. The taste and content of the beneficial properties of honey depends on the moisture content, the less liquid, the tastier and healthier the honey product will be.
The quality and quantity of the honey product directly depend on the location of the apiary, and what honey plants are located around it. The total sugar content in nectar varies from 2 to 80%. Furry workers prefer to collect pollen from plants containing at least 15% sugar. In addition to sugar, the flower, depending on the variety, contains nitrogen and phosphorus compounds, vitamins and organic acids, which give the prepared honey its characteristic features.
Conclusion
Bees make honey not only to please a person with a tasty and healthy product, but also to support the life of the bee colony. The whole family is involved in the process of preparing honey, if a significant part of it is taken away, insects may die or leave the hive.
