Honeybees are winged insects who help pollinate plants while collecting pollen and nectar from flowers.If you have flowering plants around your garden, we are sure you might have come across honeybees, known for producing sacred honey from the nectar! They are famous for their wonderful waggle dance, are fantastic flyers, and provide a great source of income for beekeepers and food for animals like bears and honey badgers.Honeybees are four-winged flying insects that belong to the Apidae family species. There are seven species of honeybees who belong to the Apis genus, which are true honeybees that produce bulk quantities of honey. Also, other types of honey are produced from honeydew. In the market, there are different flavored types of honey available with good medicinal values.With hind feet and a pretty light body, the honey bee is a flower feeder. They are social creatures and like to live in colonies or hives. Each honey bee in the group performs a particular task and participates in building the honeycomb and collecting the honey together. The colony usually contains hundreds of male drone bees, and one and only one queen bee, which is a female, and the rest are female worker bees that are in the thousands. Though worker bees are the female ones, they don’t play an active role in inbreeding. The single queen bee is the center of each hive and usually lays eggs and produces the young ones. Because drone bees don’t have stingers, they cannot feed themselves and need the help of workers. So, they neither collect pollen nor nectar; their only job is to mate with the queen bee. The queen bee is constantly taken care of by worker bees by providing food and care.But you are mistaken if you think that they are making the honey only for the sake of humans—most of the species of bees that make honey, eat it. The nectar collected by bees is broken down into carbohydrates. Drones are primarily dependent on worker bees, they relax in the colony by eating honey stores. And the working bees are very busy bees who collect nectar and plant pollen and return to the colony often, spending time foraging. They spend a lot of energy doing all of these various tasks. They need many minerals, carbohydrates, and protein to survive because they burn their strength in flying and carrying pollen loads. During this period, the honey gives them the strength to fulfill protein and other nutritional requirements. They make the beeswax, which helps in covering the hexagonal cells. During the winter or cold weather, most plants will not flower or die, and bees cannot collect nectar, during this time since they forage to keep themselves alive, depending on honey storage.It is interesting to note that honeybees become the only insects that produce food consumed by man. It is believed that the world will end when honeybees vanish from this earth. A honeybee visits at least 50-100 flowers while collecting nectar.Honey is a wonderful enzyme with medicinal and antioxidant values. It helps in controlling weight, healing wounds, helps in digesting food, soothes a sore throat, and many more.If our content gave a handful of information referring to our store’s similar content, why do cats chatter? And why do bees die after stinging? Learn Cool Bee World Facts.Why do bees make more honey than they need?So why do bees make honey? Do they make honey for themselves or do they eat honey after what we get? Let’s dig into the real story of honey-making.As we know, in making honey, bees start roaming around flowers in search of nectar. They collect this sugar water content juice from all flowers by sucking it up with the help of tongues. Not only nectar, but bees need another food called pollen. They collect this grain-type food from the heart of sweet-smelling flowers. This pollen contains protein, which helps the bees become strong and healthy. The nectar is stored in their stomach, called the honey stomach. An interesting feature of the honey bees is that they have two stomachs; one is a honey stomach, and another is a food stomach.When the honey stomach is complete, the bee returns to the hive and passes this water-content nectar to the other worker bee. This worker bee chews this liquid for at least half an hour and passes it to another bee. This passing continues until the liquid turns into sticky honey. This sticky liquid is stored in hexagonal honeycomb cells, and the cell is then sealed with a wax lid to store it appropriately. What a systematic way in the production of honey by honey bees! They are natural manufacturers gifted to humanity. One more theory is that honeybees make excess honey to survive in the winter season because they can’t forage for nectar due to cold weather conditions.Honeybees follow this process in making delicious honey. How much honey is made by this process? In producing a single teaspoon of honey, almost all eight bees are engaged. They constantly collect nectar from the flowers. The honey bees make honey in surplus when they are super active.Some people suggest that it’s wrong to take honey away from the bees. But, in fact, the beekeepers can take this surplus honey without disturbing the honeybees unless and until an ample amount of honey is leftover to survive the beehive or colony. Also, if humans don’t take honey from honeybees, there will be no room for bees making extra honey, and it may result in swarming. So harvesting honey is an important part of domestic honey beekeeping.Why do honey bees make honey in hexagonal honeycomb?Honeybees are efficient workers who perfectly prepare honey in the hexagonal honeycomb, and it is incredible to watch their designing skills. Let’s get into the facts of why do honey bees make honey only in the hexagonal honeycomb?Honey bees also follow particular protocols in making honey. The hexagonal cell shape is a six-sided polygon. The hexagonal shape is the strongest in which it doesn’t leave any gaps. This shape uses the least amount of material and perfectly holds pollen that the worker bee returns to the hive or colonies, eggs laid by the queen bee, and hold the honey tightly. The honeycombs in the hive are made of beeswax, which is designed by worker bees. These worker bees produce the beeswax from the paid glands, which are below the abdomen.What is honey made of?Honey is a mouth-watering, golden-colored liquid with a sweet and tempting taste. It’s a sweet gift to humankind from natural chemists like honeybees. What is amusing is these small insects work very hard to give us this delicious and delectable sugar syrup. Let’s get into details on what honey is made of.What are the best words to describe honey? Sweet! Is this enough to describe honey? The taste of honey is much more than sweet.This sweet, delicious, juicy liquid food is assembled by honeybees and other insects such as stingless bees. Nectar is the primary source of honey. The honeybees are natural chemists, that are experts in converting the sugar contents in floral nectar into extraordinary food. It is one of the foods in the world that doesn’t have an expiration date. Honey cannot be compared to sugar syrup because it is a mixture of almost 181 components. Honey is a solution that contains fructose and sugar glucose. Though it is obtained from flower nectar, honey has less water content when compared to nectar. That is the reason the honey is very thick or sometimes in a solid state.Honey is a thick solid resulted from the chemical processing of nectar, the nectar which bees gather. That’s it.The main ingredients of honey are carbohydrates (sugars), fragrance, vitamins, organic acids, minerals, pollen, amino acids, flavor compounds, and enzymes. These sugars are a great source of energy. So don’t hesitate to take honey into your daily diet.Why do ghost bees make milk instead of honey?Do you know that we can easily recognize the queen bee by looking at its shape? The queen bee is the main bee in the hive, whose wings reach half of the abdomen, whereas other bees’ wings entirely cover the abdomen. Let’s learn some more facts about queen bees and the reason behind producing milk instead of honey.The female reproductive organ in the queen honey is called the spermatheca. During and after mating, the queen bee stores the sperm in these reproductive organs. By using this sperm for her entire life, she produces or lays fertilized healthy eggs. During the mating process, the drone that mates with the queen will eventually die.Yes, honey bees make milk along with honey. The worker bees or female bees of the hive produce royal jelly milk to feed the young bees. This milk is also to feed the queen bee and for the bee eggs. It is white and produced by female bees through their head glands. Along with this jelly, they also feed pollen, nectar, and liquid honey packed in the honeycomb cells. These foods are called field cake or bee bread.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for why do bees make honey? Honeybee fun facts to know, then why not take a look at why do cats hate cucumbers? Are cats afraid? Or is it a cat fear? Or why do beavers build dams? Learn fun facts about the wetland rodent.
Honeybees are winged insects who help pollinate plants while collecting pollen and nectar from flowers.
