How Does A Honey Bee Make Honey?

The honey bees have colonies like human beings. The colonies of honey bees are located in the bee hives. There is a queen bee and thousands of workers in honey bee colony. The queen bee lays eggs, whereas the other bees take care of them. It lays more than 1500 eggs in a day, about 250,000 eggs in a season and more than 1000,000 eggs in its life time. Mainly the bees live for one or two years. There are about 60,000 bees in a bee colony. Many duties have been performed by the servant bees. They clean and polish the hives and they look after the larvae of the bees. Finally they go out to gather nectar from the flowers.

Do you know how honey bees make honey?

Actually, honey is the food of honey bees. They collect honey from the flowers. There is a sweet liquid in a flower which is known as nectar. The bees swallow this nectar from the flowers and carry it to the bee hive in their honey sacs. Honey sac is situated near its belly and it is separated from the belly through a valve. The sugar which is present in the nectar undergoes a chemical change, whereas the water in the nectar evaporates. The honey can remain in the hive for a long time and is stored as a food of the bees for future. Honey is being extracted from the hives by several methods. The comb can be pressed to give up honey. There is a machine which is used to remove honey from the combs. This machine is known as ‘honey extractor’. The taste and the colour of the honey are different. It depends upon the flowers from which the nectar has been collected. Honey is very useful for us as it contains several substances like dextrose, laevulose, dextrin, maltose, several vitamins, enzymes, minerals, small amount of acids and proteins.