Honeybees

General Statement

Honeybees use nectar to make honey. Nectar is almost 80% water with some complex sugars. In fact, if you have ever pulled a honeysuckle blossom out of its stem, nectar is the clear liquid that drops from the end of the blossom. Bees get nectar from flowers like clovers, dandelions, berry bushes, and fruit tree blossoms.

Sequenced Explanation

1.     The first step in making honey begins when field bees fly from flowers to flower collecting the nectar. They use their long, tube-like tongues like straw to suck the nectar out of the flowers and then they store it in their “honey stomach”.

2.    Bees actually have two stomachs, their honey stomach which they use like a nectar backpack and their regular stomach. The honey stomach holds almost 70 mg of nectar and when full, it weighs almost as much as the bee does. Honeybees must visit between 100 and 150 flowers in order to fill their honey stomach.

3.    The field bees return to the hive and pass the nectar to other worker bees. These bees suck the nectar from the honeybee’s stomach through their mouths. These worker bees chew the nectar for about half an hour. During this time, enzymes break down the complex sugars in the nectar into simple sugars so that it is both more digestible for the bees and less likely to be attacked by bacteria while it is stored within the hive.

4.    The bees then spread the nectar throughout the honeycombs and water evaporates from it, making it a thicker syrup. The bees make the nectar dry even faster by fanning it with their wings. Then, the bees seal off the cell of honeycomb with a plug of wax. The honey is stored until it is eaten.

Closing

In one year, a colony of bees eats between 120 and 200 pounds of honey. Can you imagine how many flowers they have collected the nectar from?