Honey, You're Versatile

Honey is an incredible product produced only by honey bees. In her lifetime, a worker bee will fly thousands of miles collecting pollen and nectar from flowers. Bees use the nectar to make honey by adding special enzymes to it and dehydrating it until it is just right. This sweet food is delicious by itself, but did you know that are many uses for honey?

Honey is a great ingredient for any recipe

A wonderful way to use honey is in the kitchen – there are hundreds of recipes that honey can be used in, such as bake goods, desserts, side dishes, main courses, and beverages. Because honey is a pure, natural product, it is a wonderful ingredient to use while cooking. Unlike other ingredients, honey not only sweetens and flavors foods, its special properties also help to keep certain foods such as baked good moist and delicious. How do you like to eat honey? For easy recipes to make with honey, check out the “Recipes” link on our blog!

Honey can help moisturize your skin

                  Another way to use honey is in skin care – honey is frequently used in lotions, soaps, lip balms, and cosmetics. Honey is a humectant, which means it attracts moisture to itself. If you have dry, rough skin, honey can help. For thousands of years, famous people such as Cleopatra and Queen Anne used honey to keep their skin and hair looking fresh and beautiful – how can honey help your skin?

Adding honey to hot tea can
help soothe a sore throat

Finally, honey can be used to heal wounds and for other medicinal purposes. Honey is antibacterial; it can be very helpful in healing cuts, scrapes, and burns. Since it is antibacterial, it keeps the wound clean and its moisture helps the wound to heal well. Honey is also excellent if you have a sore throat or cough. Eating honey or adding it to hot tea can help coat and soothe your throat.

With over 300 varietals of honey in the United States and over 3,000 in the world, there is one for every preference!

Parts of a Honeybee

Did you know that honeybees are insects? This means that they have a three-part body and can fly! They have a head, a thorax and an abdomen. The thorax  is the middle part and the abdomen is the long torpedo shaped end. Just like humans, bees have some very specialized body parts to do their daily work. Let’s take a look at those parts and what they do!

Here are even more parts on a bee!

Head

The head is the control center of the bee. It holds the brain of the bee and is also where the nurse bees produce royal jelly, a substance they secrete that makes a normal worker egg become a queen bee! The royal jelly comes out of glands on the top of the worker bee's head. The head also holds the antenna, eyes, and mouth.

Compound and Simple Eyes

Can you see all the tiny dots on her eye?
Those are all lenses!

Honeybees have two compound eyes. Compound eyes are special because they can see different kinds of light very well, especially UV light from the sun. They also help the bees see colors. They have thousands of tiny lenses to make one big eye. That is pretty amazing! A bee has three simple eyes on her forehead that help her determine how much light there is.

Antenna

A bee uses her antenna to tell how fast she is flying. She also uses them for smelling. Honeybees use smells to tell lots of things, like who to let into the hive and also to communicate with each other.

Bees use these to smell things!!

Mandible (Jaws)

The mandible is a very important part of the bee that allows them to eat food and also is like the honeybee’s hands. The honeybees use them to eat pollen and also to bring pollen to the newly laid eggs. Their jaws are also used to cut and shape the wax in the hive. Did you know that it takes a honeybee about 24 hours after eating lots of honey to start producing wax?

Proboscis

The honeybee's proboscis is a dark orange or brown
color.

The proboscis is a long, straw-like tongue that the bee uses to drink up nectar from flowers. Did you know that honeybees have two stomachs? They have a stomach called their honey stomach that is like a storage bin for the nectar the bees collect. When the bees get back to the hive, they take the nectar from their honey stomach and pass it to one of the other worker bees to find an empty cell to put it in. They also have a stomach for the food they eat that leads to their digestive tract.

Thorax

Forewing/Hindwing

The forewing is a larger wing that bee uses for flying. Did you know a bee makes a buzzing noise because they can flutter their wings 11,000 times per second? That is really fast! The hindwing is a smaller wing connected to the forewing that the bee can use for cooling off the hive through fanning. Fanning is when a bee flutters her wings very fast but doesn’t move anywhere. It’s kind of like running in place for humans.

Honeybee's wings are almost completely see through!

Legs

A honeybee has six legs and uses them mostly for walking. They can also use them for carrying pollen. Did you know that when a bee lands on a flower they cover themselves with pollen, then they brush their legs down their back to push the pollen into their pollen baskets? Bees comb their hair too! Pollen baskets are sticky hairs on the back legs of the bee that act like backpacks so the bees can carry large amounts of pollen at a time.

Abdomen

Stinger

Can you see the hooks on her stinger?

The stinger is a sharp needle-like object used for defense. Only the worker bees and the queen have a stinger. Drone bees don’t have stingers, so they can't protect the hive. The stinger on a worker bee has a hook on it so when she stings, the stinger gets stuck. Then the worker bee will pull so hard her insides actually come out and she will die!

Liquid Gold

A worker bee gathering nectar

For beekeepers, summertime is a very important season – it is time to extract honey from the beehive! Throughout the spring and early summer, honey bees work hard gathering nectar from flowers. They store the nectar in a very special sac called a honey sac. The bee flies back to the hive and gives it to another work bee. The bees pass the nectar from bee to bee, adding special enzymes to it. Finally, the bees put the nectar in their honey comb. Nectar is like very sweet water, but honey is very thick and sticky. To change the consistency of the nectar, the bees fan their wings and blow air over it to pull some of the water out. When it has the right amount of water, the bees cover it with beeswax to seal and protect the honey.

A full frame of honey!

Now it is the beekeeper’s turn to work. Beekeepers go out to their beehives and carefully remove all of the frames with honey on them. They brush the bees back into the hive and take the frames home. When they arrive, they use a very hot knife to cut the beeswax seal off and expose the honey. It is exciting to see the fresh honey glistening on the honey comb! The beekeeper then puts the frames in a large machine called an extractor. The extractor spins around very quickly; in fact, it spins so quickly the honey flings out of the cells of honey comb and drips down the sides of the extractor to the bottom. At the bottom of the extractor is a spigot. When the beekeeper opens the spigot, golden honey comes streaming out! It is so much fun to see (and taste!) the reward of the bees and beekeeper’s work. The beekeeper can then strain and bottle their honey – it is ready to eat!

Honey is very valuable

Bees make honey by themselves; beekeepers just extract the honey. A beekeeper does not have to add anything to the honey. The bees make it perfectly on their own. Honey is very valuable – in her whole lifetime, a worker bee will produce only 1/12 tsp. of honey. That is about one drop! Honey is a very important and delicious food. So next time you enjoy a spoonful of honey, think about all of the work that went into producing it and thank the bees and beekeepers!

Honeybee or Wasp?

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a honeybee, a wasp and a bumble bee? Well, here is your chance to learn! Most of the time when a person gets stung by an insect, it isn’t a honeybee. There are thousands of types of stinging insects in the United States and honeybees don’t want to sting you if they don’t have to. Did you know after a honeybee stings, she will die? She only has a 6-week lifespan, and she has a lot of work to do in a very short amount of time! It will take 12 worker bees their entire lifetime to make one teaspoon of honey! Let’s take a look at a few more stinging insects.

Wasps

This is a wasp. See how shiny he is?

Wasps are long, flying insects with a narrow waist. They have four wings and a hard, shiny body with no hair. Wasps look more brightly colored than honeybees as well. The lifestyle of a wasp is much different than a honeybee. Wasps live in colonies of about 10,000, and the queen wasp builds a paper nest. They also hibernate in the winter time. Unlike honeybees, wasps can't produce honey and rely on robbing food from other sources. The last thing that makes wasps special is that they can sting multiple times, and their venom is much more painful than a honeybee sting.

This is a hornet. He is a little bigger
than a wasp, but looks very similar.

Honeybees

This is a honey bee. She is very fuzzy!
She collects pollen with all those little hairs. 

Honeybees are smaller insects about 2 centimeters long and are covered with fuzzy hair all over their body. They have two wings that flutter up to 11,000 times per second! That’s why we hear a buzzing noise when a bee flies by! An average hive of honeybees has about 60,000 bees during the middle of summer. The queen bee in the hive has only one job, and that is to lay all the eggs in the hive. Did you know the queen lays 1,000-2,000 eggs per day? During the winter, honeybees are constantly moving and eating honey to keep the hive at a constant temperature of about 98 degrees. The last difference is that honeybees can only sting one time, and then they die! That is because worker bees have a hook on their stinger that gets stuck in whatever they are stinging. When they try to fly away, it pulls their insides out! I'm sure those bees would much rather be out collecting pollen and nectar, instead of stinging something and dying!

Beekeeping Through the Ages

For thousands of years, honey bees have played an important role in history. Many societies throughout history have kept and benefitted from bees and the many products they give to us.


Egyptian hieroglyphics show early beekeeping practices

In ancient Egypt, honey bees were kept in pottery jars. Egyptians used honey in various foods as well as to keep their skin beautiful. Archaeologists even found honey in King Tutankhamen’s tomb that was roughly 2,000 years old. Because honey never spoils, however, it was still edible! Would you like to taste it? In ancient times, honey and beeswax were used to pay taxes, rent, and other fees. It was so highly valued that many people accepted it in place of money!


Beekeepers in the Middle Ages kept bees in hollow tree trunks

In the Middle Ages, beekeepers kept their honey bees in hollow tree trunks, since the trees provided natural shelter for the bee and made it possible for the beekeeper to care for his hives. Honey and wax were also very important. People did not use refined sugar, so honey was their only sweetener. They also made candles out of beeswax, which provided a source of light as well as a wonderful smell!



Reverend L.L. Langstroth

The first hive of honey bees appears to have come to the United States from England in 1622. By 1853, honey bees made it into California. Honey bees are now kept in all 50 US states – maybe there is a beekeeper near you! In 1851, Reverend L.L. Langstroth invented the modern-day beehive. It had removable frames (where the bees stored food, the queen laid eggs, etc.) which allowed the beekeeper to inspect his bees up close. Langstroth's invention is still being used 160 years later!



Anyone can be a beekeeper!

In 1984, NASA took bees into space for an experiment, demonstrating bees’ abilities both on and off the planet! There are currently about 2,491,000 maintained beehives in the US with beekeepers of all ages involved in beekeeping – maybe someday YOU will be a beekeeper too!

Hive for Rent: Parts of a Beehive

When most people think of beekeeping, the first things they think of are white boxes sitting in a big green field. Would you believe that those hives actually have 8 or more different parts to them? Just like your house, bees have different “rooms” and entrances to their home. Let’s take a look at some of those parts and how they are used! 

Hive Stand: The hive stand is on the very bottom of the hive. It is a short wooden box that is used to keep the hive off the ground. Some of them even have an angled landing ramp for the bees to land on to get into the hive.

Hive stands can help the bees stay warm in the winter by
Keeping warm air trapped under the hive!

 Bottom Board: There are a few types of bottom boards, but the most common is a solid bottom board. It is used as a tray to catch any dead bees or leaf litter that comes into a beehive. It also helps keep the hive warm in the winter by sealing off the bottom of the hive from the ground. 

Some bottom boards have screens on the bottom so they stay cooler in the summer,
and also to keep any dead bees away from the other bees!

Entrance Reducer: A small piece of wood, plastic, or metal is called an entrance reducer. Beekeepers use it to keep robbers out in the springtime when a colony is weak and to keep mice out in the winter.

The entrance reducer has several different size openings it can be set to!

Deeps (Hive Bodies) and Supers: The white boxes where beekeepers keep their bees are called hive bodies. They are kind of like the outside walls of your house. Deeps are the larger boxes that the bees fill up first. The deeps are where all the new baby bees are born and also where the bees will store honey for the winter. Supers are where bees store the extra honey that beekeepers harvest from the hive. Supers are smaller than deeps because honey is very heavy, and smaller boxes are easier to lift. Still, a small super with frames full of honey can weigh 30-40 pounds!

Hives can be a large variety of colors, no just white!

Queen Excluder: This is a very special screen beekeepers put in between the deeps and supers to prevent the queen from traveling into the supers to lay eggs. The screen is a special width so only worker bees can fit through. The queen excluder ensures there is only honey in the supers.

Queen excluders can be made from metal or plastic!

The foundations can also be black
which makes the eggs easier to see
when a beekeeper is looking a the frame.

Frames: Frames are what beekeepers put inside of the deeps and supers where the bees build out their comb. Each frame is like a little room in the bees’ house. There are 8-10 frames in each box, and each one has foundation on it. The foundation is a thin sheet of plastic or beeswax with a hexagon pattern for the bees to start building out their comb. Did you know that bees naturally build their comb in a hexagon-shaped pattern? They are very smart and never waste space!

Beekeepers can put bucket feeders full of syrup on top
of the hole in the center of the inner cover!

Inner Cover: The inner cover goes on the top of the highest box. It has a hole in the center so bees can climb through. Sometimes, beekeepers put a feeder full of sugar syrup over the hole during late fall or early spring to serve as a food supplement.

There can be very fancy outer covers too!
Some look like roofs on a house. They
are very popular among gardeners!

Outer Cover: Similar to a roof, the outer cover telescopes over the inner cover and the top box. They are usually covered with metal to make sure rain and snow don't get into the hive. 

There are many other pieces of equipment that advanced beekeepers use, but these are the really important things that most beekeepers use. Can you relate each part of the hive to a part of your house?

Creative Communication!

Communication is important in all relationships. Humans communicate with one another on a regular basis to share information and thoughts. This communication is important in helping people bond with one another. Some forms of communication include speech, sign language, body language, and facial expressions. Did you know that honey bees communicate with each other as well? Honey bees live in large colonies, with an average of 40,000 to 60,000 bees in each hive – you can imagine how important communication is in such a large family!




The Path of a Waggle Dance

Honey bees use several different means of communication, with the most popular being dancing. Honey bees perform a specific dance in order to share the location of a food supply with the other bees in colony so that they, too, can gather food from that area. To perform the dance, a bee will walk forward, waggling her body from side to side. Then, she walks normally in a half circle and starts on the path again, waggling her body. The distance forward that the bee walks, the speed of her waggling, and the direction she is facing provide incredibly accurate directions to the other bees, who then go and collect the food. The directions are based off of the location of the sun, which the bees can sense even inside the dark hive.



Bees release pheromones to communicate important information, such as
if the queen is present in the hive or if there are intruders in the hive. The
other bees respond appropriately to the messages from these pheromones.

Another form of communication is the release of pheromones. Pheromones are distinct smells that the bees release to convey messages. The queen releases a special pheromone that helps the bees sense that she is in the hive and healthy. Worker bees also release pheromones. Guard bees, who protect the beehive from intruders, release a special alarm pheromone whenever there is an invader. This pheromone smells like ripe bananas!

Just as people communicate in different ways, so do honey bees. Communication allows the members of the colony to bond and to help one another, making the entire hive stronger. Communication - whether through speech, sign language, dancing, or pheromones – plays an important role in daily life. How do you communicate?

To see a bee perform a waggle dance, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lhVBNQ-Ik8