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How Do Bees Make Honey?

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    Honey bees collect pollen and nectar in the spring when most flowers and plants are in bloom. They use their long, tubelike tongues like straws (called proboscis) to suck the nectar out of the flowers and they store it in their stomachs and carry it to the beehive. While inside the bee's stomach for about half an hour, the nectar mixes with the proteins and enzymes produced by the bees, converting the nectar into honey. The bees then drop the honey into the beeswax comb, which are hexagonal cells made of wax produced by the bees, and repeat the process until the combs are full. To prepare for long-term storage, the bees fan their wings to evaporate and thicken the honey (note: Nectar is 80% water and honey is about 14-18% water). When this is done, the bees cap the honey comb with wax and move on to the next empty comb, starting all over again. So, strictly speaking, bees actually do not create honey. The honey we eat is a plant product, nectar which honey bees have regurgitated and dehydrated to improve its nutritional properties.
    It is always so interesting to explain the question of "how do bees make honey". I have written a short ebook entitled "Darling, honey is good for you" which uses very simple language to specially explain to kids (3-6+) what honey is and how honey is made and collected by man. So far I have received enthusiastic requests for the ebook from all over the world -- United Kingdom, Zambia, Nigeria, United States, India, and Saudi Arabia. All you need to do is fill in a simple form to get it free!
    Finally, more facts on "how do bees make honey" -- they also make honey to store it in the hive as food for the winter when there are no blossoms and therefore little nectar available. However, a hive only needs a small portion of honey to survive the winter, meaning that the extra honey can be harvested by beekeepers, who will then remove the honey-filled combs from the beehives and extract the liquid honey for use by first removing the wax cap with a sharp knife or a machine and then placing the bee hive frames in a large centrifuge to get the honey out of the comb. Beekeepers has the choice of reusing the comb by putting it back into the bee hives to be refilled with honey instead of melting it down to make candles. In this way, the bees don’t have to re-build the comb and the beekeepers have more honey to sell.

    source: www.benefits-of-honey.com
    5 0

    Charming  

    answered 1 year ago

    I didn't write any e-book and all that 'I's' don't mean me. The person who wrote this articles is the one who is "I". Anyway thanks for the rating!
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    Charming

    Charming

    commented 1 year ago

      Honey is a sugar based jelly type of food available from nature. It is intense sweet and tasty in nature. Though the popular myth is bees create honey, but the truth is they do not actually create it, their role is to improvise the product nectar, which is available in flowers. They improve it through the process of regurgitation and dehydration. As most flowers' nectar contains almost 80% water with some complex sugars. Bees have two stomachs ~ (1) honey stomach and (2) normal stomach. While visiting different flowers, they use their tube-like tongue to suck the nectar and store it in their honey stomach, where it started breaking down into more simpler, digestible form, and the process ends when the bee after coming back to their home pass it to another bee, and eventually, enzymes break down the complex sugar into a complete simple sugar. The bees then store it in the honeycomb by spreading it all over, and letting the water evapourate through it. The bees also use their wings to fan the substance in order to make it dry faster. They store it until next use.
      4 1

      Sudipa_sarkar  

      answered 3 years ago

      Why ask a question, that you already know the answer to? That is not the purpose of this site. Are you just trying to show that you know something? Or is it that you can't answer actual questions that NEED answering? It is almost as bad as repeating yourself. So don't repeat yourself. Just quit reiterating what you have already said, because you are repeating what you already know....
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      Lojikal

      Lojikal

      commented 2 years ago

        Only honey bees make honey. Honey bees collect nectar from flowers. Nectar is present in all plant flowers. It is a mixture of water and sugar that flowers produce and secreted from the flower's glands. Nectar attracts pollinating animals like honey bees. Honey bees generally collect nectar from flowers like blossoms, berry bushes, clovers, dandelion etc. Bees have tube like tongues through which they suck the nectar out and store it in their stomachs.

        As they return to their hives, they pass the nectar to the worker bees who chew the nectar for about 30 minutes. Enzymes in the bee break the complex sugar down. They then spread it on honeycombs within the hives where they fan the nectar with their wings so that the water from the nectar evaporates and it becomes thick syrup called honey.
        1 0

        Nyala  

        answered 3 years ago

        they suck it out of a flower such as , dandilions, blossoms, clovers, or berry blossoms then they store it in there honey stomacs. Then they return back to there hive and pass it to the bee workers. Then its stored.
        2 1

        Saffin  

        answered 1 year ago

        Apparently a bee will only produce half a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.
        0 0

        Gonegrape  

        answered 1 year ago

          They get nectar from flowers in their and go to the hive, then (vomit it out) spit it out.
          0 0
          Guest

          Guest  

          answered 7 months ago

          Simply icky answer regurgitated bee spit...
          0 1

          Nomad1  

          answered 1 year ago

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