Why do bees make honey - many of us are interested. There is an unequivocal answer to this question: they need honey for a full life and. In fact, no insect other than the bee can produce a product suitable for humans. Bees work around the clock: they jump from flower to flower in order to find fragrant nectar, which, as a result of painstaking work, will turn into honey. Not every one of us has an idea of why bees make honey and how the bee product is made. In fact, this is a complex and very time-consuming process. Let's find out where honey comes from. To get it, the bees have to do a colossal job. As a result of their efforts, flower nectar will turn into a healing product.
How do industrious insects behave?
It is worth noting that honey is produced in the hollow of a tree or in an apiary in a beehive. An insect family can number up to 50,000 individuals: it has a queen, drones, the so-called “receiving bees”, “collectors” and “scouts”. The main task of the uterus is to lay eggs. Young bees clean the hive, give food to the larvae that have just hatched. Most of the family are field insects: they extract the necessary nectar. If we talk about males, they are in the family, but they do not collect nectar. Why? The fact is that males have only one task to fertilize the uterus. After that, they become unclaimed: insects throw them out of their habitat (in some cases they kill them). Nectar should be taken from special honey plants.
Why do bees need honey? They are very fond of this delicacy. Insects extract it from various flowers, bushes; some trees are suitable for this purpose. Bees begin to work in early spring. Active work is observed when the first inflorescence is born. Insects are forced to work painstakingly before late autumn. All bees are conditionally divided into two groups. The first is scout bees: they are looking for places where the right plants grow. The second group of collectors: these insects collect nectar and send it to the family. After the bees find the necessary substance, they pick it up in their mouths and fly to their habitat. After that, they begin to spin, thereby informing the pickers of the location of the plant.
The scouts again go to the location of the nectar: they lead packs of brothers behind them. When the insects arrive at their destination, they cling to the inflorescences. Bees have unique receptors on their paws, thanks to which the presence of nectar is checked. When the insects are convinced that it is really located in a given place, they pick it up in their mouths using their proboscis. AT oral cavity the flower substance combines with saliva, as a result of which it is enriched with enzymes. Many healing substances turn nectar into fragrant honey. When pickers are recruiting right amount nectar, they send it to the hive. The receivers are young insects, they also clean the hive and feed the larvae.
How is honey made?
Consider the production process unique product. As we have already found out, nectar is processed by receiving bees. Honey is produced when excess moisture evaporates from the nectar. Nutrients are broken down into simple sugars namely glucose and fructose. In order for excess substances to evaporate, insects need to fill the cells. We also note that they can increase ventilation in their own home. The liquid collected by them quickly turns into steam, then leaves the hive.
All these reactions lead to the thickening of the “honey preparation”. A place for a liquid portion appears in the combs: insects pour in the nectar very carefully, drop by drop. After it reaches the desired consistency, the cell will need to be filled to the top. The ripening of honey occurs in the upper part of the honeycombs.
In order for sucrose to decompose into simple substances, insects need to use a salivary secret. They take some nectar into their mouths and mix it with saliva. Then the bees release it and retract it, and so on several times. Due to these actions, the liquid is enriched valuable substances. On the final stage nectar completely turns into honey. After the insects get honey, they cover it with a special wax cap. Now the honey is ready.
About the benefits of honey
Bee honey is good for health: it consists of a large amount nutrients. The product is rich in carbohydrates, amino acids, vitamins. Of particular value are minerals together with essential oils. Vitamins of groups B, E, C and A improve the metabolism in cells. Generally healing composition depends on when the nectar was collected. Biogenic stimulants present in the product improve vital processes and.
The complex of vitamins and amino acids contained in honey brings great benefit for the body. Vitamins contained in honey cannot be compared with synthetic ones!
The medicinal properties of the product have been appreciated by many people, among them those who sought to strengthen their immunity. Thanks to beneficial substances contained in the product, the body becomes more resilient and protected from various ailments. Regular and moderate use treats increase resistance to infectious diseases. However, despite the benefits of honey, it can harm people with diabetes.
Why do bees need honey?
The product is a complete food for bees and is used by them during the winter. We repeat that insect families include great amount individuals, respectively, in order to feed them, you need to get a large number of nectar. Bees work hard in spring, autumn and summer. Thus, they provide themselves with food for the winter. Honey is seized by man, and insects again need to fertilize flower seeds. Bees tolerate winter well: despite the severe cold, they maintain the necessary warmth in the hive.
To create a draft, they flap their wings: this also helps protect against hypothermia. It is curious to note: insects protect larvae from cooling and overheating. In winter, the wax covers are removed from the combs so that the bees can eat their food. Honey feeds not only full-fledged individuals, but also larvae: it saturates them with vital energy. By eating their food, the bees gain strength for the harvest. Now we know why bees need honey and how it is produced.
How do bees make honey? Surely, lovers of this delicacy have repeatedly wondered how these workers manage to create such a unique and useful product. We will tell you about the process of producing honey by bees. By the way, did you know that this is the only product suitable for human food, created by insects?
Honey is made from the nectar that bees extract from honey plants. Its sources are various shrubs, flowers and plants. Spring thaw and flowering become an ideal time for the painstaking work of bees to process the first honey plants.
Stages of honey production by bees
The process of how bees make honey from nectar is divided into several complex steps. Having become acquainted with them, one marvels at what skillful and complex craftsmanship these insects possess!
· The beginning of the process is the search for honey plants. Moreover, each bee has its own function! So, in the hive there are scout bees, bees-gatherers and young bees-receivers. The task of the first is to find sources of nectar and report the find to the pickers. Information is conveyed by the whirling dance of winged insects. As a result, scouts and gatherers fly to the found honey plants.
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· Arriving at the place, the pickers collect nectar with the help of a proboscis. At the same time, it mixes with the secret of the oral cavity of an insect rich in enzymes. This process is one of the key steps in how bees make honey.
· The next step in the preparation of honey is the laying out of nectar in cells of honeycombs. The receiving bee fills the cells of the honeycombs drop by drop, and the evaporation of moisture from the nectar is achieved by natural ventilation of the hive as a result of circling insects. As the honey matures, the receivers transfer the nectar to different cells.
· Surprising in how honey is made is the process of transformation of sucrose into fructose and glucose. Chemical reaction carried out by means of a special enzyme "invertase", produced in the proboscis of the insect. Nectar combined with bee secretion and oxygen starts the hydrolysis process. Upon its completion, a product is born, in the chemical composition of which there are up to 75% of easily digestible sugars (glucose and fructose).
· The product ripens when the moisture in it remains no more than 21%. The process of how bees get honey is almost complete! The craftswomen seal honeycombs with a refreshing healing delicacy with wax cells. An elixir that has no analogues in its chemical composition, as well as useful and nutritional properties, ready! The resulting product is distinguished by a moderately thick and uniform texture, golden hue, tart aroma and rich sweet taste, with a slight bitterness!
This is how complex, amazing and painstaking the process of how bees make honey is. Think about how logical and skillful it is to make a favorite product from nectar.
Honey is the main ingredient winter diet bees. In fact, it helps them survive during cold weather. In the warm season, flower nectar is collected for the production of honey. The nectar contains a large amount of water, so the bees perform a lot of actions to remove from it. excess water. This process occurs due to the heat and ventilation of the hive. In addition, bees add enzymes from their own bodies to honey to transform flower nectar into food and "preserve" it. During the ripening process, honey is repeatedly transferred from cell to cell, each time adding a preservative. Honey matures in eight to ten days. After it matures, the bees seal the cells with a thin layer of wax to prevent fermentation of honey, which is used by the bees as food as needed.Honey has a number positive properties. It improves metabolism, has bactericidal qualities, has tonic and anti-inflammatory effects. Honey helps to normalize sleep.
Other types of bee food
Bees collect not only flower nectar, but also flower pollen. The latter is a protein food for bees. Dense clumps of bee pollen are put into separate cells of honeycombs, well tamped, and honey is poured on top. This is called perga, it is the basis protein nutrition bees. That is, these insects feed on liquid food (and untransformed nectar) and solid food.If in a dry summer there is not enough flower nectar, the bees begin to make honey from the sweet secretions of other insects - psyllids, mealybugs or aphids. Bees collect the secretions of these insects from. Another source of raw materials for honey is honeydew and sugary substances of plants. Fir, spruce, linden, oak, maple, willow, hazel, and other trees provide bees with raw materials for honeydew honey.
Real high-quality honey rarely causes allergic reaction even in the most "difficult" allergies. Most often, impurities and additives contained in low-quality honey have a negative effect.
Such honey is no less valuable than flower honey, but it is not suitable for bees as a winter diet, because it contains too many mineral salts.
People, breeding bees, take a significant part of the honey for themselves. If you do not compensate the bees for the taken honey, the insects may die of starvation. Therefore, beekeepers feed bees in winter with thick sugar syrup, which can partially replace honey.
- 1. Collection of nectar
- 2. Honey production process
- 3. Purpose of honey production
Honey collection is the main occupation of honey bees. All the efforts of the nest are aimed at collecting and harvesting honey products. Individual members of the family have different functions, however, their common goal is honey.
The duties of the bee colony are as follows:
- exploration of new sources of pollen and nectar;
- extraction of honey and its transportation to the hive;
- wax production and construction of honeycombs - reservoirs for honey mass;
- “packaging” of honey into cells of honeycombs;
- the creation by the uterus of new members of the bee family for the future honey collection;
- defense of honey reserves, brood and uterus.
In short, the proper performance of these duties is the key to the well-being of the whole family. Only one fundamental question remained unanswered: how do bees make honey? We will try to answer it in this article.
Collection of nectar
The whole process of making honey begins with the collection of nectar. As soon as the air warms up to 12 degrees, insects wake up from hibernation and start their first cleansing flights, getting rid of fecal accumulations accumulated during the cold. Since the bees only make honey when the first honey plants bloom, the winged workers have plenty of time to prepare for the honey season (cleaning the hive, checking the combs and frames).
The fact that the flowers have blossomed, the colony learns from the scouts, who are exclusively engaged in patrolling the territory in search of meadows with flowers. As soon as they find them, they announce this to the whole family with the help of a special signal dance. A swarm of miners gets excited and prepares to fly to the facility. Guided by a scout, the bees fly to the place of honey collection and begin to extract nectar and pollen.
How bees collect nectar
Nectar is a translucent sweet substance secreted by a flower. The insect, wielding a long tubular proboscis, sucks it out, after which it enters a special honey ventricle (a bee has 2 stomachs: one for its own nutrition, and the other for collecting nectar). To fill the stomach to the top (its capacity is 70 mg, which is similar to the weight of the bee itself), you need to visit at least one and a half thousand flowers. Having filled it, the insect flies home, where the worker bees-receiving workers are waiting for it, which suck this sweetness out of the mouth of the getter with their proboscises.
honey production process
The nectar received from the getters is distributed by the worker bees: one of them part goes for feeding the larvae, and the other for honey.
The way bees make honey is a complex, one-of-a-kind process. Therefore, it is important to highlight all the stages of such production:
- first, the worker insects chew the nectar for a long time and thoroughly. At this time, it is actively fermented. Sugar breaks down into glucose and fructose, making the whole substance more digestible. In addition, bee saliva has a bactericidal effect, disinfects nectar, and honey obtained from it is stored longer;
- ready and chewed sweetness is laid out in pre-prepared honeycombs. Cells are filled approximately 2-thirds;
- now the most important task is to accelerate the evaporation of excess moisture. To do this, insects actively flap their wings, raising the temperature in the hive. Gradually, the moisture evaporates and a viscous syrup is formed, consisting already of 75-80% of glucose and fructose, and only 5% of sucrose (such a percentage of sugars in honey is due to its easy digestibility);
- cells with honey are hermetically sealed with wax stoppers and left to ripen. Corks with wax also contain bee saliva enzymes, which additionally disinfects the cell and prevents liquefaction and fermentation of the finished product.
honey production process
During the honey collection season, the family is able to produce up to 200 kg of product.
Purpose of honey production
After all the main points of honey production have been covered, it is worth identifying its purpose - why bees need honey.
The main goal of the honey collection, its meaning laid down by nature, is a supply of food for itself and the larvae for the winter. good stock food is the key to a normal winter. If the bee colony starves, it will die, or in the spring it will be so weakened that it will not be able to participate in the summer honey collection.
Thus, the answer to the question of why bees make honey is obvious: in order to maintain a normal level of vital activity, replenishing their energy reserves whenever they are depleted by any kind of hive work (defense from intruders, fanning nectar in order to remove it from excess moisture, cleaning, feeding larvae, etc.).
Insects kept in an apiary produce much large quantity honey than you need to feed. This is due to the fact that the beekeeper additionally stimulates them to collect a sweet product, regularly removing honeycombs from the hives. And the bees, believing that the reserves are not enough for the winter, are constantly stocking up.
How do bees make honey? Have you ever thought about it? But this is a very laborious process for small creatures, which are bees.
How bees make honey - you need a honeycomb first
Honeycombs are the houses of bees, where they store bee bread, honey, and grow offspring.
Honeycombs are regular hexagonal cells made of beeswax.
Honeycombs have different purposes:
- for the uterus (one in one hive), she lays eggs;
- for larvae, that is, offspring;
- drone (for males);
- bee (their bees fill with honey).
The size of the honeycomb is about 5 mm in diameter, the weight of an empty honeycomb is up to 150 g.
In order for the bees to start building their “houses”, a person helps them in this by lowering a frame with foundation into the hive.
What is a frame? It is as if future honeycombs are programmed on a wire frame made of wax, and then the bees continue to build them. For each comb, a bee takes up to 13 mg of wax, and for drone combs - up to 30 mg.
The wax is produced by the bee as soon as it begins to fly to the flowers.
How and from what do bees make honey?
- The production of honey begins from the nectar and pollen of flowers. Nectar is 80% water. During the processing of nectar into honey, the water evaporates and a thick syrup is obtained.
- Field bees, both young and old, fly for nectar. They suck up nectar with a special goiter, inside it are located blood vessels and special glands that break down nectar glucose.
- To make the honey that we are used to eating, it takes a little time for the bee to collect nectar, much more for processing the nectar with enzymes, transferring the honey to the comb, and sealing it.
- Processing nectar with enzymes is a long process. It takes place in the bee's stomach.
- Bees have two stomachs: for their own nutrition and for collecting nectar. It fits in the stomach up to 70 mg, the bee itself weighs a little more. To fill it, the bee must collect nectar from 1500 flowers.
- To get 1 kg of honey, bees need to make 40,000-150,000 flights for nectar.
- The bee transfers the collected nectar to the cell, where it stays for several days, and then the young hive bees take care of it.
- In addition to honey, bees also collect no less important bee bread (pollen), and also put it in honeycombs, only honeycombs with bee bread are lighter than those with honey.
- Honey is needed not only by people, honey is food for bees in winter.
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