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You will find everything you need to know about honey production in this article

How and Why do bees produce honey

How bees produce honey

Bee extracts nectar from flowers using its long, tube-shaped tongue, and stores it in its additional stomach, known as a crop, and there the nectar mixes with enzymes that transform its chemical composition and pH, making it more suitable for long-term storage. And when the bee returns to the hive, it passes the nectar it collected to another bee by taking it out of its mouth and placing it in the mouth of the other bee.

Converting nectar to honey

The nectar is considered a sugary sweet liquid with a water content of about 70%, while the percentage of water in honey does not exceed 20%, and the bees get rid of the excess water in the nectar by swallowing and ruminating several times, in addition to ventilating the honey-filled cells in the honeycomb using the wings In an attempt to accelerate the evaporation process, in order to obtain the honey at the required density, and when most of the water evaporates from the honeycomb, the bee closes the disc by secreting a liquid from its abdomen, which solidifies in the end to form beeswax , and in the event that the honey remains in this state away from the water And the air, it can be stored indefinitely, which provides an ideal food source for bees in the cold winter months, and the flavor and color of honey produced depends on the flowers from which the bees collect the nectar, for example honey extracted from orange blossom has a slight orange aroma and flavor.

The amount of honey produced by bees

A single worker bee produces about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey only during its lifetime that does not exceed a few weeks. However, thousands of worker bees in a single hive can, through their cooperative work, produce more than approximately 91 kg of honey for the queen in one year, and the beekeeper can During this period, 14-27 kg of additional honey is harvested without affecting the ability of the bee kingdom to survive the winter season. It should be noted that the production of 450 g of honey requires the work of 300 worker bees for a period of approximately three weeks.

Why do bees make honey?

Types of honey-producing bees

There are more than 20 thousand species of bees in the world that differ in shape, size, nesting habits, and life cycle, as less than 8% of bees live in groups that include other individuals of the same species, while members of the remaining species lead isolated or isolated lives. The percentage of bee species that produce honey is less than 4% of the total number of bees, that is, less than 800 species, and all honey bees are characterized by being social, living in hives, and able to sting, and among the most famous types of honey bees Known scientifically as (Apis mellifera).

To learn more about the types of bees, you can read the article Bees are three types

Reasons why bees make honey

Bees need food like other living organisms, and to meet their nutritional requirements, they collect the nectar of flowers, pollen, and water, as pollen is the main source of protein needed for the production of brood, and the growth of young bees, and it provides the fats, minerals, and vitamins necessary for food Bees, while nectar provides the bees with the minerals they need, including calcium, copper, potassium, magnesium, and sodium, while the honey produced by the bees from the nectar represents the main source of carbohydrates needed to provide them with the energy they need for several things. Like flying, maintaining the kingdom, and carrying out normal daily activities, without carbohydrates, bees will die within a few days,It should be noted that worker bees need to harvest nectar from millions of flowers to produce approximately 453.5 grams of honey, despite that, one kingdom produces about 36 kg of surplus honey every year.

Reasons for storing honey

Bees store honey as a food source for the kingdom to keep it alive in periods during which they are not able to obtain the nectar of flowers for several reasons, such as that flowers are not available in the first place, as happens in the winter season in the temperate and northern regions between October and March Or because of droughts like those that prevail in tropical countries, or as a result of the inability of the bees to leave the hive to harvest nectar due to low temperatures, precipitation, or other inappropriate weather conditions.

The beekeeper must take into account leaving the honey box always full of honey when harvesting honey during the summer, due to the importance of storing sufficient amount of honey to meet the needs of the bees in the event of a lack of yield during the autumn season, noting that the standard size is The honeycomb box has a capacity of approximately ten frames of honey .It is worth noting that the starvation of bees can be prevented in winter by transporting the apiary to an area where there are flowers that produce nectar, or by feeding bees with white sugar or its solution.