Content
Honey is a useful beekeeping product that is necessary for the life of not only humans, but also bees. Shaggy workers begin actively collecting nectar in the spring, when the first flowers appear, and continue until late autumn. During this period, the bees make honey, which is necessary for a safe winter.
Why do bees need honey?
Honey is a nutritious product that is necessary for the full development of the bee colony. It is the main carbohydrate food that feeds both adults and brood. Forager bees can feed on honey products and pollen, but they need honey constantly, and pollen is a supplement. If there is not enough sweet treat or when artificial bait is used, bee colonies quickly die or leave their home, taking with them food for several days.
The product is also used to feed brood larvae. Young insects on the 4th day of life begin to consume a nutrient mixture consisting of honey, water and pollen. Queen bee After birth, a sweet mixture is also necessary for full development and procreation.
Bees make honey and honeycombs, as these products are an inexhaustible source for the bee colony and an integral part for raising brood.
Bees produce a natural product from spring until late autumn to provide food for the colony throughout the winter. After the first frost, the insects uncork the wax and eat a sweet treat containing a large number of calories, which make it possible to withstand the winter cold.
How bees get honey
A bee colony consists of a queen bee who lays eggs, scouts, guards, collectors, receivers and drones.
Hard workers collect sweet treats from honey plants - these can be flowers, shrubs, trees that bloom from early spring to late autumn. Before starting honey collection, scout bees fly out of the hive to determine the collection location. Once discovered, they return to the bee house and transmit information to the worker bees. Insects pass a drop of nectar to the bees to determine the quality and make movements along the honeycombs, showing the direction for flight.
After the signaling dance, the scouts go to the place where the nectar is found, taking the collecting bees with them.
Where do bees collect honey?
Once the insects have found the honey plant, they land on the flower and begin to recognize whether there is nectar on the flower or not, using taste buds located on their legs.
When pollen is detected, they begin to collect it using a special goiter, sending it to the stomach. In one flight, a bee carries up to 45 g of a sweet substance into the hive, but the greater the distance from the honey plants to the hive, the less pollen the worker bee will bring.This is explained by the fact that during the flight the insect eats a small part of the nectar to replenish energy.
Furry workers can fly up to 8 km per day, but long-distance flights are dangerous for them. The most productive distance is considered to be 2 km. When collecting pollen at such a distance, a worker is able to collect nectar from 12 hectares of a flowering field.
How bees make honey
In order to get 1 kg of sweet treat, a bee needs to fly around about 10 million flowers. After returning home, the furry worker gets rid of the nectar, passing it on to the receiving bee for processing.
She, in turn, processes the nectar in the stomach, and after completing the process, she begins to extend and lower her proboscis, releasing and hiding a drop of honey. The bee performs this procedure 130 times. Next, the bee finds a free cell and carefully puts aside a drop of treat. The preparatory stage of honey preparation is completed, all that remains is for the bees to get rid of excess moisture and enrich the product with enzymes.
What is the name of the expansion of the bee's esophagus, where honey is formed?
The nectar collected by the bees is located in the honey sac. The nectar collected by the furry workers passes through the esophagus into the crop and remains there until the insect returns to the hive. There is a valve between the honey crop and the digestive system that prevents the honey product from entering the digestive tract. After returning home, the insect regurgitates a portion of nectar from the honey crop.
The amount of sweet treat that one bee can bring depends on the honey flower.If, after visiting 100 flowers, there is a lot of pollen, she returns home with a honey crop filled with a load of 35 mg. The weight of a worker bee is 10 g, so the weight of the load can reach half the body weight of the insect.
How do bees make honey?
Bees obtain honey from the pollen of honey plants. Collecting honey is a painstaking task that involves more than a thousand bees. The process of preparing a sweet delicacy occurs in several stages:
- After collecting pollen, the worker bee chews the nectar for a long time and thoroughly, adding enzymes to it that break down sugar into glucose and fructose. During processing, the insect adds saliva, which has an antibacterial effect, due to which the honey product is disinfected, does not sour, and is stored for a long time.
- After the worker bee brings nectar to the hive, she passes it on to the receiving bee.
- The prepared honeycombs are filled to 2/3 of the volume with the finished product.
- In order to lower the humidity in the hive, increase the air temperature and turn the product into a viscous syrup, the bees begin to intensively flap their wings.
- When a new batch arrives, the receiving bees attach nectar to the upper walls of the cells in small drops.
- After the work is done, the honeycombs are sealed with wax, creating a tight seal. In the created vacuum, the honey will reach full readiness.
Maturation process
Honey ripening is a painstaking and lengthy process that turns nectar into a useful product. The collected pollen contains about 92% moisture, and high-quality honey should contain no more than 20% water.
When the honey product ripens, cane sugar is converted into fructose and glucose, which provide high nutritional value.In addition to the breakdown of sugar, when the delicacy ripens, polysaccharides are synthesized due to the action of enzymes produced by the insect’s body.
During the ripening process of a sweet delicacy, other biochemical processes occur, saturating the product with good taste, aroma and beneficial substances. The ripening time of the honey product depends on the strength of the family and climatic conditions. In cloudy weather, the process is delayed due to high humidity.
What factors influence the beneficial properties and quality of honey?
Bees make honey from nectar, so the quality of the product is affected by air humidity, plant type, climate and time of year. The taste and beneficial properties of honey depend on the moisture content; the less liquid, the tastier and healthier the honey product will be.
The quality and quantity of the honey product directly depend on the location of the apiary and what honey plants are located around it. The total sugar content of nectar varies from 2 to 80%. Furry workers prefer to collect pollen from plants containing at least 15% sugar. In addition to sugar, the flower, depending on the variety, contains nitrogen and phosphorus compounds, vitamins and organic acids, which give the honey its characteristic characteristics.
Conclusion
Bees make honey not only to please humans with a tasty and healthy product, but also to support the life of the bee colony. The whole family is involved in the process of preparing honey; if a significant part of it is taken away, the insects may die or leave the hive.
