How bees make honey seems like a simple question. It would seem that they fly from flower to flower, collect nectar, store it in honeycombs, and cover it with caps. I think anyone could answer that. But it’s not that simple. Over tens of millions of years, the craft of honey production has accumulated so many nuances that it has transformed routine foraging into a highly productive biotechnological production process, allowing a colony to produce tens of kilograms of honey or more each year. So, the complete cycle of honey production can be divided into several stages.
Stage 1. Building the honeycomb
You are probably aware that bees store honey in hermetically sealed wax combs, which are only opened when necessary. But building them is not such a simple task. According to the life cycle of a worker bee, combs are built only by bees aged 12 to 18 days, because younger workers are not sufficiently developed and their wax glands are not yet functioning. Older insects work outside the hive, and their wax glands decrease in size. However, in the spring, bees that have overwintered participate in the restoration of the hive on an equal footing with the young.
Their wax glands produce microscopic plates (less than a microgram) that are then softened by their mandibles and front legs into an amorphous, pliable mass. This mass is used to build hexagonal cells. When the wax is shaped, it hardens again and becomes a reliable building material.
Stage 2. Reconnaissance
While young bees are busy building the hive, adult foragers fly up to 5 kilometers away from the hive in search of food. Upon finding a source of food, the worker bee returns home and communicates this information through dance. Through dance, the bee conveys information about the direction, distance, and amount of nectar. Depending on this information, a certain number of worker bees are sent to the collection point.
The bee dance is very complex and only partially genetically programmed; it must be learned. Therefore, future foragers first observe the dances of their older comrades, then learn to follow their instructions, and only then begin to dance on their own. This behavior leads to the formation of unique cultural characteristics. Although the dances of two hives are similar and based on the same principles, they can differ in nuances.
Stage 3. Nectar collection
So, the location of the field with nectar has been determined, and the workers have flown out. What happens next? Next, the bee finds the flower by its scent and licks the nectar with a special tongue. The tongue, by the way, is a profound modification of the lower lip — insects are quite different from us in this respect.
The collected nectar goes into the bee’s goiter — an extension of the esophagus before the stomach, where it is not absorbed into the bloodstream or broken down by digestive enzymes. The maximum capacity of the crop is approximately 50 milligrams — which is nectar from dozens of flowers. It is also worth considering that up to a quarter of the collected nectar is consumed by the bee itself. It needs to eat something. After filling its honey goiter or exhausting the nectar reserves in the meadow, the bee returns home.
Stage 4. Processing
And here it is worth paying attention to a rather obvious problem: flower nectar and honey are two completely different substances, and it takes a lot of effort to turn one into the other. Therefore, upon returning to the hive, the bee passes the nectar on to its younger sisters, who are 12-18 days old. They are the ones who process the nectar.
The processing takes several days and also takes place in the goiter. Through its walls, the bee removes excess moisture and, at the same time, secretes many enzymes into it to process and sterilize the raw material. The main one is the enzyme invertase, which breaks down sucrose into glucose and fructose. Other enzymes have a pronounced antimicrobial effect or break down impurities into vitamins and biologically active substances.
Stage 5. Drying and storing honey
Yes, and there are no nuances here. If a bee simply pours the contents of its goiter into a cell and seals it with wax, it will inevitably ferment, because there is still too much moisture in the honey. Therefore, the insect first squeezes a few drops of honey onto the walls and blows them with a stream of air using quick movements of its wings. When the droplets dry, the bee pushes them to the bottom of the comb.
But that’s not all. Young honey must first mature and thicken in the air. Then another bee collects the honey from several cells into one, thereby mixing it. This operation is repeated several times — this way, the honey is averaged in terms of its chemical composition. And only after all these manipulations is it laid in the honeycomb and covered with a wax cap.
Conclusion
This is how bees learned to produce honey over many years of evolution. And no one can do it better than them.
