The Buzz on Honey

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By Linda | October 14, 2008

This post answers some common questions concerning the relationship between bees, pollen, nectar and honey.

1. Why do bees make honey?

Answer: Honeybees are special in that unlike wasps and bumblebees, bee colonies do not hibernate but stay active within their hive throughout winter. The energy required to sustain this activity requires a lot of food energy. Honey is the bees way of storing the food they gathered over the previous summer to sustain them through the winter. Although the average hive only needs 20-30 lbs of honey to survive the winter, the bees are capable of producing much more. This overproduction of honey is what the beekeeper makes his living on.

2. What do bees use pollen for?

Answer: Bees use pollen primarily as a protein source to feed themselves and their growing larvae. Pollen is very high in protein and is essential for the growth and development of the bee larvae. Since there are lots of flowers in the spring (and lots of pollen), most bees are born in the spring. Bees do not use pollen to make honey although some pollen elements do make their way into the honey.

3. What do bees use to make honey?

Answer: Bees collect nectar from various types of flowers as a carbohydrate (food energy) source and to produce honey. Nectar is a sugary fluid made up primarily of water (around 70%) and sugar (usually sucrose, glucose and/or fructose). There are also scores of other trace minerals and compounds in the flower nectar that vary greatly from plant species to plant species. These variations in flower nectar composition result in honeys that can vary greatly in flavor and color. Honey made from clover flowers is very light in color and mild tasting while honey made from buckwheat flowers is dark brown and has a very strong flavor that resembles molasses.

4. How do bees make honey?

Answer: Foraging bees visit flower after flower collecting their nectar by drawing it through an extendable drinking straw-like appendage called a proboscis and storing it in their honey stomach. Honeybees then carry the nectar back to their hive in tiny, 40-milligram loads regurgitating the nectar and passing it to worker bees in the hive. The worker bees then gradually ”cure” the nectar into honey which is the most stable naturally occuring food product in the world. If properly stored, honey can remain edible for centuries!

The bees process the nectar by evaporating most of the water from it. Nectar is as much as 70 percent water, while honey contains only about 20 percent moisture. Bees get rid of the extra water by swallowing and regurgitating the nectar over and over. This process also adds enzymes to the mix and converts the sugars present in the flower nectar to other more easily digestible forms of sugar. The hive workers also fan their wings over the filled cells of the honeycomb to further evaporate moisture. The finished honey contains a high concentration of several types of sugars, including sucrose, laevulose and dextrose.

The bees also change the nectar by making it more acidic. The Ph of honey is between 3.5 and 4 (about as acidic as orange juice). This inhibits the growth of bacteria. One of the enzymes added to the honey during nectar processing is glucose oxidase. When bees dilute honey to feed it to their young, glucose oxidase breaks glucose down into hydrogen peroxide (an antiseptic). Honey has a further defense against invasion from bacteria in that it is hydroscopic. Bacteria that comes into contact with honey undergo plasmolysis - they lose their moisture content to the surrounding honey and die.