Honey is one of the products of natural origin that has beneficial properties for humans. This product is used in the food, medicinal and cosmetic industries. Honey is rich in many vitamins and minerals, which help normalize the functioning of many organs and strengthen the immune system. In addition, the unique smell of this substance can calm the nervous system, normalize sleep, and also have a beneficial effect on the epidermis. People have long learned to extract honey and speed up this process by influencing insects using various methods. Why do bees make honey in natural conditions - no one wonders. People only use the final product for general consumption.

Why do bees make honey?

Bees prefer to live in a hive - a makeshift home that they build from beeswax that they produce themselves. The hive consists of several layers with honey storage and other useful openings. One hive can contain up to 100 thousand bees, but their number depends on many factors, including the time of year. The bee family is a strong supporter of matriarchy. Types of bees in the family:

• The main thing in the hive is the queen - the queen of bees, whose task is to ensure the continuation of the family and strengthen the existing family. The queen is alone in the hive and is significantly superior in appearance to her relatives.
• Drones. These bees do not collect pollen or produce honey. Their task is to procreate and fertilize the female. As soon as the mission is completed, the drones die. Or they can be expelled from the family by the joint desire of all the bees.
• Worker bees. These are the bees that produce honey. They collect pollen and prepare the required amount of sweet delicacy. Their task is also to clean the house and raise young bees.

The queen lays up to 2 thousand eggs every day, from which new individuals will appear in three weeks. The young bee must get stronger before starting its work. She will be able to carry out her activities only a month after birth.

Honey serves as a source of nutrition for bees. This is the main food for the entire period of existence of insects. Bees collect honey from various flowers, which can be found on bushes and trees. The object you are looking for is not necessarily located near the hive. A bee sometimes flies long distances in search of food. Their work begins in the spring, when the first flowers bloom, and ends in late autumn. The work takes place in two stages. First, the scouts look for pollen.

How do bees find nectar? They explore the territory, and when they find what they are looking for, they collect a small amount in their mouth. After this, the scout flies back home. There they start dancing. But this dance is unusual - it tells the other bees exactly where they found the pollen. Once the direction is set in place, the foraging bees fly. It is from this pollen that honey is subsequently obtained.

Bees collect a lot of honey - much more than their colony needs. This is done in case of a long winter and other unforeseen circumstances. The bee will collect as much honey for the winter as will allow the family to wait out the cold. The beneficial properties of honey affect the proper functioning of the bee’s entire body. It contains nutrients and vitamins that not only satisfy hunger, but also make the internal secretion glands work. Good nutrition ensures timely production of wax, which they need to produce honeycombs.

In addition, we should not forget about such a function of bees as pollinating flowers. This happens thanks to the pollen that remains on the bee's body. Subsequently, this flower pollen falls on neighboring plants and thus pollination occurs.

How is nectar collected?

Bees don't see very well, but they rely heavily on their sense of smell to collect nectar. After the scouts reported the location of the desired object, the worker bees fly to collect. The time for collecting nectar varies and depends on the bee’s ability to work. Insects start working early in the morning and finish in the evening. At night the bees sleep.
Taste buds located on the legs tell the bees about the presence of nectar on the flower. Nectar collection occurs through the mouth, in which their saliva radically changes the properties of the collected pollen. Their body contains a special container for storing nectar. Bees essentially have two stomachs: one for eating and the other for collecting pollen and nectar. When the stomach is full, the bee flies back to the hive.

A bee processes up to 12 hectares of area per day. To do this, she covers a distance of two to eight kilometers. The bee can consume some nectar as food. This is necessary in case of long flights over long distances. However, they happen extremely rarely because they are more dangerous and unpredictable. The bee may get lost or be hit by a vehicle.

Bees carrying honey transfer the collected nectar to other insects - members of the family and fly for a new portion. Those insects that are busy with more domestic work do not leave their hive. They are the ones who are involved in the honey making process.

The bees gradually spread the treat onto the walls of the honeycomb. During this time, it became thicker as it lost a significant part of its moisture. The bees continue to transfer sweet liquid from one opening of the honeycomb to another, while actively flapping their wings to create the optimal temperature. It is important that the air in the honeycombs does not stagnate, and that there is also no debris.

The bees work together to fix any problem that arises. When bees transfer honey, they enrich it with their enzymes. At this time, the nectar is saturated with glucose and fructose, which are formed by mixing with the bee’s saliva. The cells fill slowly because it takes a long time to produce honey. After filling the cells, the bees cover the honeycombs with wax. As a rule, honey storage areas are always located at the top of the hive.

What factors influence the quality of honey?

Honey contains useful substances such as vitamins, potassium, magnesium, calcium, acids and other substances. The process of ripening honey in honeycombs takes from one to two weeks. The quality of the finished product depends on many factors:

• Type of plants.
• Amount of moisture in nectar.
• Amount of sugars and acid.

Plants have varying amounts and quality of pollen that bees carry. The main indicator of high-quality honey is low moisture. The more viscous honey is, the more benefits and active components it contains. This honey has a longer shelf life and is not subject to fermentation and spoilage.

The taste of honey is also affected by the sugars it contains. The amount of sugar depends on the flower and type of honey. The most valuable components of honey are the substances that enter it along with the bee’s saliva. They are the ones who make the processes happen that turn nectar into honey. These enzymes subsequently regulate metabolism in the body.

The quality of honey is also affected by its collection. Early honey collected by bees in late spring - early autumn will have a more pronounced taste than late varieties of honey. The benefits of such honey are much greater, since all the herbs and flowers are just beginning to actively bloom and there are plenty of nutrients in them.

The human factor also plays an important role in determining the quality of honey. If the bees in the apiary are fed with sugar or other additives, the quality of the honey will be significantly worse.

Only honey in its pure form can give a person a storehouse of useful substances and vitamins.

Video why bees need honey

Honey is a unique natural product with a huge number of valuable properties. It can be added to food, eaten on its own, and is actively used in medicine. The special taste, wonderful smell and other qualities of this product make it a favorite delicacy of many people. At the same time, even a child knows where it comes from, but few people know how bees make honey.

Its production is a long and complex process. In addition, bees are hard workers and produce so much honey that it is enough not only for the bee family, but also for people. And, of course, it is very interesting to learn how bees produce honey, how bees build honeycombs, how they look for honey-bearing flowers, how a tasty and healthy product is obtained from nectar and pollen.

Of course, bees primarily produce this product for own needs.It, like nectar, is the main food for both adult insects and young animals. Working individuals can also feed on pollen, but they can do without it for some time, but without honey they begin to die. Bee brood is also fed with a mixture of honey and pollen. If the hive does not collect good supplies of food, then it faces a difficult winter; by spring the swarm will be weakened and will not be able to collect honey in the summer or will die altogether. So the question of how bees produce honey is very important. In apiaries, special attention is paid to food supplies and the health of the swarm.

So, collecting this product is the main activity of the bee colony. Each of its members has certain functions, but all of them are somehow related to honey collection.

The main concerns of the hive:

• searching for sources of pollen and nectar;
• collecting nectar and delivering it to the hive;
• wax production and honeycomb construction;
• filling honeycombs with honey.

In addition, there is a queen of the hive, which reproduces new family members, and there are individuals who protect the queen, brood and honey reserves of the hive.

Nectar collection

Before you know how honey is made, you need to know that it is a complex, unique process that takes place in several stages.

Before as start collecting honey, bees send scouts in search of honey plants. When the scouts find suitable vegetation, they return to the hive and inform the foraging bees using special movements - the bee dance - about the location they have found, and then fly back to the honey bees. All the pickers follow her. They deliver the collected nectar to the hive in a special bag under the abdomen - practically a second stomach: the first is needed to feed the bee, the second is for carrying “prey”.

To completely fill such a bag completely, a small hardworking insect must fly around one and a half thousand honey plants. Nectar can be collected from all flowering plants. The bee sits on the pollen part of the flower, sucks nectar from it with its goiter and collects pollen - first brushing it with its hind legs onto the brushes of the front ones, and then again transferring it to the hind legs and making a ball of pollen, which is then placed in a special basket on the bee's legs. Such a ball is formed from about a thousand plants.

Scouts fly out daily in search of honey harvest, they are looking for honey plants, where there is the most sugar in the nectar. Only bad weather can force them to take a break. In good weather during the honey harvest season, you can constantly see bees collecting honey and bringing it to the hive.

Collecting pollen and nectar is the initial stage in honey production. Individuals of all generations take part in it. Nectar is transferred to the hive in the crop, which contains special glands. They produce enzymes that break down the glucose in the nectar, disinfect it and enrich it with dextrins. In the hive, the bee moves the food into the cell. Worker bees sort the nectar - part goes to honey production, part remains to feed the brood.

Honey ripening

The future honey remains in the cell for a couple of days, and then young bees begin to deal with it. They also add their enzymes to the nectar and transfer it to the cells, gradually filling all the honeycombs completely.

Temperature inside the hive quite high, insects constantly fan the raw honey with their wings, thanks to which moisture evaporates from it, the product turns into a viscous syrup - this is the answer to the question of how honey appears. Nectar is liquid and more than half consists of water. Honey consists of only 20 percent water.

The honeycombs are hermetically sealed with a wax stopper so that the raw materials inside the cell do not ferment. Then the honey matures in a vacuum.

The entire production cycle lasts about 10 days.

Lumps of pollen - bee bread - are placed in the cells adjacent to the honey cells. Bee bread is a by-product of the hive, but it is also important for the life of the swarm. On the frames, honeycombs with beebread differ from honeycombs with honey in color: beebread - yellow, honey - dark, closer to brown.

How bees make honeycombs

Honey production is impossible without honeycombs. Honeycombs are hexagonal cells of regular geometric shape, where bees store their food - beebread and honey, and raise their offspring. There are several types of honeycombs:

• queen cells - queens are grown in them;
• drone - the name speaks for itself, drones live in them, fertilizing the uterus;
• transitional - they are made for larvae;
• bee - they are filled with the actual products of honey collection.

In the apiary, the honeycombs are built up on a wax sheet - foundation, where the initial frame of the cells is laid. The foundation is secured to a wire frame and lowered into the hive. There the bees are already growing the honeycomb to the required size on both sides of the foundation. There is not a single hole between the honeycombs. All of them, as well as the joints between the cells, are sealed by insects with wax. How do bees make wax? It begins to be produced on its own by special glands when the first flights to honey plants begin.

In one hive there lives one swarm with a queen. Usually about 12 frames are placed in it, from each one they download from one and a half to two kilograms of honey, that is, about 18 kg from the hive, although such a collection is not always obtained. Under favorable circumstances, one bee family can produce up to 200 kg of product - and only about a hundredth of this amount is needed for life!

Honey qualities

If the honey harvest season was hot or, conversely, rainy, there are few honey plants, then, despite the diligence of the bees, the honeycombs are filled slowly, and less honey is produced. There are situations when insects cannot find nectar at all, but they cannot return to the hive without prey and are therefore forced to collect sweet plant secretions(honeydew) and the sweet juice secreted by aphids and scale insects, the so-called honeydew. Honey with honeydew mixed into it, or honeydew, is considered low-grade and has a poor taste. When buying this product after a dry summer, you should always check with the seller where and how bees collect pollen and nectar in the apiary in such weather.

But, in addition to this, both honeydew and honeydew pose a danger to the bees themselves, since in winter the product with their admixture harms the metabolic processes of insects. In a good apiary, a lot of attention is paid to how honey is made and from what to maintain the health of the swarm.

The product collected from different honey plants varies in color and taste. It may also vary in medicinal properties. When purchasing, it would not be superfluous to inquire about its qualities and how the bees extract honey in this apiary, from what flowers.

Any honey is very beneficial for the body, as it has the ability to improve health, increase protective functions, and improve blood circulation. This product is an excellent antiviral agent and a source of energy. It contains such useful substances, How:

• fructose, glucose, sucrose,
• maltose,
• dextrin,
• minerals,
• vitamins.

Therefore, apiaries strive to produce as much of this valuable product as possible. It should be enough to feed larvae, winter food for bees, and food and treatment for people. Bees continuously replenish their reserves - after all, they require a lot of energy to operate the hive. Having learned how bees produce honey, you will have great respect for both these insects, capable of tirelessly working, and for the delicacy itself, because it is the result of a painstaking and complex process that cannot be repeated without honey bees.

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Surely you have often wondered how bees make honey? This mysterious process interested the people of antiquity, as it does us now. We invite you to find out exactly how pollen collection occurs, why do bees need it, and what is the end result?

Most importantly, pollen is not just a means for bees to make honey. The important thing is that without pollen there would be no bees. This is the raw material for baby bees and adult insects. Insects use this useful flower elixir for several purposes. The first is food for nurses who produce royal jelly. By eating pollen, nurse insects maintain their strength by productively producing healthy milk.

The second purpose of consumption is support for newborn baby bees. The lipid-protein mass, which, in fact, is the contents of the flower, nourishes the babies and helps them grow quickly. True, such feeding takes only three days for worker bees, and for the queen until she finally matures. When this period for working insects ends, we can see a grown, stronger individual with formed working glands.

For builders, flower contents are no less valuable as evidence. This product, which is collected by worker bees, stimulates the activity of their wax glands, which means it allows them to build strong honeycombs. For what? Naturally, to seal them and...

In addition, drones also need pollen products. It promotes their puberty and their immediate function - insemination of females. And the last, no less important function of pollen: it is actually a “test” for beebread. This substance is extremely useful for striped workers during the cold season.

As you can see, pollen has many functions. Everything it is needed for is vital for the inhabitants. You can learn more about the properties of pollen and the work of bees from the video.

Subtleties of the collection process

How exactly do black-striped workers collect pollen? It is known that the only instrument for transferring raw materials from the flower to the hive is the insect’s body itself. Insects find a pollen-bearing plant and collect both nectar and pollen at once. In the video below you can see what painstaking and delicate work this is for such a small organism.

1. A bee lands on the pollen area of ​​a flower.
2. Starting to collect nectar, it also picks up pollen grains.
3. The hind legs help the insect to clean raw materials from the body so that it accumulates in special “brushes” on the middle legs.
4. Next, the “brushes” are compressed, the bee drags them between the hind legs, as if pushing the collected pollen grains onto the hind legs.
5. Afterwards, the bee carefully “combs” the left and right hind legs with a special toothed comb located on the insect’s lower leg. After which a pollen ball is formed.
6. If the raw material is collected from plant catkins, then the pollen is dry. The bees collect it extremely carefully.
7. If the calyx of the flower is closed, scraping of the raw material occurs with the help of the jaws and the first pair of legs.
8. After this, the bee makes forward movements with its paws, moving the pollen ball into the recess of the lower leg. It is also called "basket". There it is held by special lateral hairs (several) and one curved lateral hair.

So, after the lump is in the basket, the black and yellow worker will have to repeat this process of collecting and rolling many more times in order to fill the basket to the end. Upon arrival at the location, the worker bee transfers pollen to the receptionist. With her middle foot she pushes the lump out of the basket, and the receptionist compacts it into a special cell where it is stored. This is very entertaining and useful, but still, how is honey made? This action will be discussed further.

How does honey come about?

An interesting and, one might say, mysterious process is the birth of honey. How do bees make honey? As with the collection of pollen raw materials, the production of the sweet final bee product is carried out in several stages. The receiving bee processes the nectar (pollen) by evaporating excess moisture, forming a honey mass. Surprisingly, insects are able to adjust the ventilation of the honeycomb so that liquid evaporates from the honeycombs, which already contain microportions of nectar.

When one portion of nectar becomes thick enough, it is moved by the bees to other, free honeycombs. The more ripe the honey, the higher it will be in the tray, and so on in a decreasing trajectory. A special enzyme, invertase, promotes the decomposition of natural sucrose into two components: glucose and fructose. The bee collects a drop of nectar into its crop, then releases it onto its proboscis. Afterwards he pulls in again. And so on several times.

Thus, the nectar is mixed with bee secretions and oxygen. This process starts the process of hydrolysis in honey, which does not stop even after being placed in cells. This is how beekeepers obtain honey, which consists of 75% sugars that are easily digestible, namely the fructose and glucose components.

Video “How bees make honey”

This fascinating video will tell you how striped workers can make nectar from bees.

All summer long, striped insects work tirelessly, flying from flower to flower. Flying around hundreds of honey-bearing inflorescences per day, workers collect nectar and pollen from them - an excellent food product for bees. But why do bees make honey from nectar, putting it in hives? We'll talk about this further.

Humanity has been engaged in beekeeping for centuries, using the results of the work of honey insects. And, of course, many of us know that they do them for themselves. But sometimes we don’t even think about why bees need honey? You can learn about this by delving into the nature of insects.

Honey is the main food of bees

The life of a bee colony is a chain of interconnected and interdependent processes. Each individual has its own purpose. The queen incubates the offspring, scouts fly around the territory in search of eggs, workers build honeycombs and bring nectar and pollen. Even newborn insects are busy - they feed the larvae and make sure that the nests have optimal conditions for the emergence of new individuals.

The bee family is quite large and numbers several thousand individuals. This means you need to take care of large supplies of food. Moreover, in winter these insects, contrary to popular belief, do not hibernate. Yes, they have nowhere to collect nectar, and weather conditions do not allow them to fly out of the trap. Therefore, in the warm season, these insects stock up on honey and bee bread so that they have something to eat in winter.

Honey and beebread are the main types of food for winged workers.

As you know, honey plants do not collect honey from flowers, but pollen and nectar. And from these products they prepare bee bread and honey for their family. Sweet honey saturates the bee's body with the necessary amount of carbohydrates and water. Bee bread is a protein substitute and is often called “bee bread.”

However, bees are very thrifty and prudent creatures. Therefore, they stock up on honey, several times the required amount. Why do they need so many supplies? They make provisions in case of a long winter or a visit from uninvited guests, such as a bear. That's why we have the opportunity to benefit a little from their food.

A competent beekeeper can correctly calculate how much honey a bee colony needs to leave for the winter. But unscrupulous beekeepers take every last drop from the hive. And so that the insects do not die of hunger, they are fed with sugar or syrup. But by eating sugar, bees do not receive the necessary natural substances, vitamins, and enzymes for full development. Therefore, we repeat once again that only honey and beebread are complete food for striped workers.

For what else?

Bees need the vitamins that honey is so rich in for the proper functioning of their internal secretion glands. The more nectar the worker honey plants bring to the hive, the more wax is released from their wax glands. And insects urgently need wax for the construction of honeycombs in which food will be stored and offspring will be hatched.

Nature is an excellent technologist. She thought out to the smallest detail the functioning of all living beings on earth. And bees are clear proof of this. Collecting sweet nectar from flowers, workers are covered from head to toe in pollen - the male reproductive cells of plants. And when insects fly over a flowering field, pollen particles scatter on neighboring plants.

In this way, bees pollinate flowering herbs and shrubs. What ensures the reproduction of seed plants. So it turns out that by getting their own food, insects are doing a good deed and helping nature. The same cannot be said about people’s livelihoods. By the way, in China, where everyone was exterminated long ago, people pollinate fruit trees, collecting pollen with a brush and transferring pollen from flower to flower.

This is how these amazing insects interact with each other. They are part of nature, and all their actions are needed in order to maintain the natural balance on our planet Earth.

Video “How bees collect honey”

Are you probably interested in taking a closer look at how bees collect nectar from flowers? In this video you can enjoy an amazing spectacle.

Honey is a natural product of bees, it contains most of the healing vitamins and properties. It has an irreplaceable taste and amazing smell, honey can be taken as a separate product or with a variety of foods, and medicinal compounds are also made on its basis with the addition of various products. But not all fans of this delicacy know how and where it comes from and who makes honey. This is a long and labor-intensive process.

The honey extraction process itself takes place in 4 stages:

• worker bees chew nectar for a long time and thoroughly and add enzymes to it. Sugar is broken down into fructose and glucose, which makes the product more digestible. Bee saliva has an antibacterial property that helps disinfect nectar and prolong the storage of honey;
• finished products placed in pre-prepared cells, which are filled by 2/3;
• after starts moisture evaporation process. Insects flap their wings, which increases the temperature. Over time, the moisture disappears, forming a viscous syrup;

• honeycomb with substance hermetically sealed sealed with wax stoppers, and in the created vacuum the honey reaches full maturity. The wax plugs contain the secretion of bee saliva, which disinfects the cell, preventing fermentation of the finished product.

Why do bees make honey?

There are several options for answering the question why:

Nectar and honey subsequently produced from it are the main carbohydrate food for these insects.

Both adult bees and brood feed on honey. Working insects, in addition to honey, also consume pollen, and they constantly need the first, and can do without the second for a certain period. In the absence of honey and artificial feeding, bees die en masse. At the moment of swarming, they take with them the required amount of food for several days.

Another possible answer is feeding requirement of brood larvae. From the 4th day, young animals begin to feed on a combination of water, pollen and honey. After birth, the uterus also consumes honey food or a mixture of sugar and honey. Why else do bees make honey? This product is an inexhaustible source for bee colonies; it produces the necessary amount of heat to maintain the required temperature in the hives (34-35 °C).

Bees, during the period of collecting food, drag pollen on their paws, contributing to fertilization of seeds of melliferous vegetation. All summer long they fly from flower to flower, performing what is called fruitful “team work.”

How is honey collected?

The process of honey accumulation is no less interesting. Before the bees begin honey collection, they receive warning from scout bees, in which direction the honey collection is located and what is the distance to it. At this moment, the foraging bees are ready to “go”, waiting for a certain signal from the scout bees. Upon the return of the first such bee to the apiary, insects receive information using information movements(beekeepers recently called it bee “dances”) about the beginning of the honey harvest. The insect very quickly makes an incomplete circle around the honeycombs, then flies in a straight line, wagging its belly, and again makes a semicircle, but in the opposite direction.

If you show bee dance on white paper, a figure eight is formed. In order for all the honey insects to flock to the warning movements, the scout repeats the signaling movements several times. In addition, the “dance” ceremony includes the involvement of several forager bees, who make exactly the same movements, touch her belly, and sometimes take fresh nectar from her. Signaling movements bring all bees in the hive into an active state. After delivering fresh nectar to the bees, the scout flies back, followed by the rest of the insects, mobilized and prepared to begin work.

Scout bees search for new places every day for collecting nectar, where there are honey-bearing plantations with a high concentration of sugar in the nectar. Sometimes bad weather becomes an obstacle to honey collection, causing a forced break, and the foraging bees that fly in to collect pollen return empty. Insects make observations and wait for the resumption of nectar secretion in order to notify the family.

There are males in the bee colony. They do not collect nectar; their function is to fertilize the uterus. After the need for them disappears, the bees kill or drive the drones out of the hive.

What is honey for?

Honey is necessary for promoting health and for the human body as a whole. Has the ability to stabilize and improve the condition of most organs, strengthens protective functions, improves blood circulation, inhibits the aging process, and is a powerful source of energy.

Beneficial features explained by its origin and complex chemical constituents. Honey is known for its healing, antiviral, and strengthening functions, thanks to which it is widely used in medicine.

How much honey does a bee colony collect?

Each hive contains one swarm of bees with a queen. To collect honey, 11–12 frames are usually placed in a box. From one such frame you can download about 1.5-2 kg of products. This means that in one ordinary hive up to 18 kg of a unique honey delicacy is collected. But when downloading honey, beekeepers do not often manage to get such an amount of honey. Just like insects abundantly fill the middle of the foundation, and leave the outer cells half full. Therefore, from one hive it is possible to obtain 13–14 kg of honey products.

During the hot or rainy season, the amount of honey from one family does not even reach this ratio. Bees diligently collect nectar, but with a small number of honey plants, more time is spent and the cells fill more slowly. In such situations, the yield from one pumping is 7–10 kg.

Honey collection is the main occupation of bees. All efforts of the bee family are aimed at collecting nectar and further preparing honey products. Each individual of the family has certain functions, but despite this, their common goal is honey.