What do Bees Eat?

Did you know that honeybees eat more than just honey? They eat a couple different types of food to stay healthy and have energy to work!

Of course honeybees eat honey! They make it from nectar, the sugary substance flowers make to invite the bees to visit. The honeybees gather this nectar to make into honey. You can learn about how honeybees make honey in our past post called “How Do Honeybees Make Honey?” The honey they eat is the source of carbohydrates and gives them energy. Did you know that honey is a good energy source for humans too!

The pollen baskets are packed full!

Honeybees also eat pollen (a powdery substance flowers make) for their protein. They mix the pollen with nectar and pack it onto their back legs into their pollen baskets. They then carry the pollen home to feed to the brood (baby bees). This pollen keeps the honeybees healthy so they can fight off infection in the hive and help the baby bees grow big and strong.

The milky substance inside the cells is royal jelly.

Royal jelly is a milky, protein rich substance that the honeybees feed special eggs to make them become a queen bee. If the egg wasn’t fed royal jelly then it would become a worker bee, but when an egg is fed the special food it supercharges their development so that they are able to lay eggs and become a queen bee. Royal jelly is made from glands in the bees’ head. Some people like to eat royal jelly because it has so many healthy proteins in it. While it doesn’t turn you into a queen bee it can be a great way to keep yourself healthy.

Lastly, honeybees drink water. All living animals need water and honeybees are no different. They look for slow moving sources of water because honeybees can drown. Pollinating and collecting nectar is a hard job and the worker bees need somewhere safe to land to take a drink of water. We wrote back in February about how you can build your own bee water bath!

How is the Queen Chosen in a Hive?

In a hive of honeybees there are three different types of bees. The have very different, but very vital, jobs they need to complete to make honey and live happily. In a hive, there is only one queen. The queen is different based on a few factors: size, diet, and job. There are important steps that need to be taken for a female bee to become a queen. 

All honeybees are born in cells, the hexagonal holes the bees use to store their honey and pollen. The queen's body holds every egg she ever needs to lay in her life. In a day, she lays about 2000 eggs. In order to create a new queen, the current queen lays an egg in a special cell called the queen cell. The queen cell is larger because the larvae, or the baby bee, growing inside of it will be larger than all of the other bees in the hive. When the new queen is developing, worker bees will feed her royal jelly, a special milky substance that is produced from the glands of a honeybee's head. Royal jelly is full of special proteins that help the larvae in the queen cell grow and develop her reproductive organs that allow her to hold and lay so many eggs in her lifetime. The larvae of the new queen will stay in the cell for about 16 days, until she is ready to be born.

The queen of the hive is the only honeybee that can lay eggs, so when she knows that she may die soon or something is wrong, she will release pheromones. Pheromones are a smell that tell the other bees what's wrong, and instruct them to prepare for a new queen.

Once the new queen is born, she will sting or suffocate the old queen until she passes away. Sometimes there are a few queen cells made, with more than one queen hatching. The first queen to hatch is seen as the strongest to the other bees, so she will take over. All of the other queens have to be killed because the honeybees only accept one queen per hive. Having more than one would confuse them, and too many eggs would be laid everyday, causing overpopulation.

Once the old queen and all the other young queens have been killed, the new queen assumes her responsibility as mother of the hive. She will reign as long as she is healthy. 

Bees Like to Clean

This is what propolis looks like in a beehive.
It glues the frames together and seals all cracks.

Do you know the first thing a female honeybee does when she is born? She crawls out of her honeycomb cell, turns back around,  and begins cleaning. Honeybees like to keep their home clean. Have you ever heard it said honeybees keep their hives cleaner than a hospital? They do this through their use of propolis and cleaning each other.

Propolis is made of sap from trees mixed with beeswax and enzymes (special substances which give cleaning and medicinal properties). Beekeepers like to call it “bee glue” because it is a sticky substance the honeybees use to seal up cracks so no dust or debris can come in the hive. Just like a lot of the other products of the hive, propolis has cleansing properties. It cleans the air and any substance it comes in contact with. In fact, the air is so clean that it is considered sterile.

This nasal spray has propolis in it to boost
your immune system.

Just like honeybees love propolis for cleaning, a lot of medicine companies like to make cough drops with propolis. You can also find propolis in tinctures (propolis in liquid form that you can take a drop of if you’re getting sick), lip balms, toothpaste, mouthwash, and nasal spray. You can use propolis just like the honeybees do to stay healthy!

The second way honeybees keep the hive clean is through their behavior. If a hive is infected with a disease, the worker bees will remove everything infected and it will not be allowed back inside the hive. This is especially important to prevent spread of diseases. Once they remove it, they clean everything again with propolis. The honeybees even help clean each other and the queen to keep the hive as clean as possible. 

These bees are cleaning off a bee who came 
home from a day foraging.

By using propolis and having careful behavior, honeybees keep the hive extremely clean. 

Other than honey, find these in the hive!

Everyone who enjoys honey loves it for the taste and the unique, sweet flavor it possesses. We use it for cooking, as a natural sweetener, and even for medicinal purposes! However, many people don't know about the other products honeybees use and produce in the hive!

Honeybees make beeswax to form their hive. The bees create hexagonal shaped cells with the beeswax to store honey and pollen in. The cells also serve as a temporary home for the larvae (the developing bees). People may purchase beeswax with the honey still inside the cells, which is known as comb honey.

Comb honey is the most natural form of honey because it is bought exactly as it comes from the hive. Other than comb honey, there is chunk honey, which is a chunk of comb honey in a jar of liquid honey. Beeswax is used in plenty of cosmetics because of its soothing and healing properties. Beeswax may also be used to create candles; the candles have a very fresh, delicate honey smell, and they last quite a long time!

Propolis is what honeybees use to seal the cracks of their hive; the propolis makes the hive safer and more sanitary. Propolis is very beneficial for not only the honeybees, but also humans. Propolis contains anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, and anti-bacterial properties. It is so rich in beneficial properties because it is made from sap in trees and resin from the tops of leaves and plants along with honeybee saliva and beeswax.

Pollen is a powdery substance honeybees carry from flower to flower to successfully pollinate. To gather it, honeybees collect the pollen on the backs of their legs in their pollen baskets. Then they bring the pollen home to produce bee bread. Bee bread is a mixture of honey and pollen that is fed to the larvae. Humans may also consume pollen; it contains plenty of nutrients and a lot of protein. People may buy it to use on salads and in smoothies. Pollen is a great source of protein for vegetarians.

There are so many different amazing products of the hive people may purchase and use in their life. Make sure you talk to a local beekeeper and try some for yourself!