How do Honeybees Make Honey?

Have you ever wondered how honeybees make honey?

Well, flowers need pollination from honeybees to grow fruits, vegetables, and nuts. The way the flowers entice honeybees to pollinate them is by producing a sweet substance called nectar. The bees gather the nectar to turn into honey for their food. When a bee lands on a flower it will stick out its tongue (also called a proboscis). The proboscis is shaped like a straw and helps the honeybee suck up the nectar. 

Notice the bee's proboscis drinking the
nectar from the flower?
Photo: dalantech - deviant art

The nectar is then stored in a bucket inside their body called a honey sac. Honeybees can’t carry buckets like we can, so they store it in a special bucket inside their body. Inside the honey sac, the nectar is mixed with enzymes, special substances which give medicinal properties to honey. These enzymes add antibacterial, antimicrobial, and hygroscopic properties. That means honey is like nature’s Neosporin. Next time you get a cut or wound, put some honey on it and then a band-aid. The honey will clean the wound because of the cleansing properties and keep it moisturized and sealed to help it heal with as little scarring as possible. Many hospitals even use honey to help heal burns.

Honey stored in the honeycomb
Photo: Igor Dmitriey

While the honey is mixing with enzymes, the honeybee will fly home to her beehive. Inside the beehive the bee will deposit the honey from her honey sac into the honeycomb. The honeycomb is where baby bees are laid and born as well as the food (like honey) is stored. The bees will fan their wings over the nectar to dehydrate the honey (take some of the water out). Once some of the water is taken out, we have a thick, syrupy honey. The honeybees will put fresh beeswax over the honeycomb cells to make sure no dust or dirt comes in while the honey is stored until it is needed.

After all the hard work, the bees now have honey. Honey is their main food source, and they often have an excess amount of it. A beekeeper can then come in to take their extra honey they don’t need, so we can enjoy it too. Next time we enjoy honey drizzled on a biscuit or a honey smoothie, we should thank the hardworking honeybees.

Honey Halloween

Happy Halloween! October is a great month for bonfires, playing in the leaves, and of course getting dressed up for a night of candy collecting. For most beekeepers, October is spent preparing the hives for winter. With the bees becoming less active, we can still be creative and pull inspiration from those fuzzy friends of ours.

This family wears bee, skep,
and beekeeper costumes.

If you don’t want to dress up as the usual witch, Frankenstein monster, or vampire, how about a bee inspired costume! Throw on a black and yellow striped shirt, a set of antenna, and a stinger and you are ready to be a honey bee.

Try putting a costume on your honey bottle for Halloween!

Who says only people can dress up for Halloween? Grab a bottle of honey, some craft supplies and your imagination for a decorating contest. A little bit of construction paper, tissue, paper, glue and markers will go a long way to make your ordinary bottle or jar of honey into a dressed up masterpiece! If you are having a Halloween party, a honey bottle decorating contest would be a great addition.

Honey sticks are a great
treat to give out at
Halloween!

If you love honey like I do, then you would be excited to get a honey stick or a piece of honey candy on Halloween. If you friends or family want to give something different out to "trick or treaters," suggest honey sticks or honey candy. Honey is a great treat for everyone, and I bet many of your classmates would enjoy some honey in their candy containers!