How a bee produces. Honey and more. What other useful products do bees make? Why do bees make honey?

Surely you have often wondered how bees make honey? This mysterious process interested the people of antiquity, as it does us now. We invite you to find out exactly how pollen collection occurs, why do bees need it, and what is the end result?

Most importantly, pollen is not just a means for bees to make honey. The important thing is that without pollen there would be no bees. This is the raw material for baby bees and adult insects. Insects use this useful flower elixir for several purposes. The first is food for nurses who produce royal jelly. By eating pollen, nurse insects maintain their strength by productively producing healthy milk.

The second purpose of consumption is support for newborn baby bees. The lipid-protein mass, which, in fact, is the contents of the flower, nourishes the babies and helps them grow quickly. True, such feeding takes only three days for worker bees, and for the queen until she finally matures. When this period for working insects ends, we can see a grown, stronger individual with formed working glands.

For builders, flower contents are no less valuable as evidence. This product, which is collected by worker bees, stimulates the activity of their wax glands, which means it allows them to build strong honeycombs. For what? Naturally, to seal them and...

In addition, drones also need pollen products. It promotes their puberty and their immediate function - insemination of females. And the last, no less important function of pollen: it is actually a “test” for beebread. This substance is extremely useful for striped workers during the cold season.

As you can see, pollen has many functions. Everything it is needed for is vital for the inhabitants. You can learn more about the properties of pollen and the work of bees from the video.

Subtleties of the collection process

How exactly do black-striped workers collect pollen? It is known that the only instrument for transferring raw materials from the flower to the hive is the insect’s body itself. Insects find a pollen-bearing plant and collect both nectar and pollen at once. In the video below you can see what painstaking and delicate work this is for such a small organism.

1. A bee lands on the pollen area of ​​a flower.
2. Starting to collect nectar, it also picks up pollen grains.
3. The hind legs help the insect to clean raw materials from the body so that it accumulates in special “brushes” on the middle legs.
4. Next, the “brushes” are compressed, the bee drags them between the hind legs, as if pushing the collected pollen grains onto the hind legs.
5. Afterwards, the bee carefully “combs” the left and right hind legs with a special toothed comb located on the insect’s lower leg. After which a pollen ball is formed.
6. If the raw material is collected from plant catkins, then the pollen is dry. The bees collect it extremely carefully.
7. If the calyx of the flower is closed, scraping of the raw material occurs with the help of the jaws and the first pair of legs.
8. After this, the bee makes forward movements with its paws, moving the pollen ball into the recess of the lower leg. It is also called "basket". There it is held by special lateral hairs (several) and one curved lateral hair.

So, after the lump is in the basket, the black and yellow worker will have to repeat this process of collecting and rolling many more times in order to fill the basket to the end. Upon arrival at the location, the worker bee transfers pollen to the receptionist. With her middle foot she pushes the lump out of the basket, and the receptionist compacts it into a special cell where it is stored. This is very entertaining and useful, but still, how is honey made? This action will be discussed further.

How does honey come about?

An interesting and, one might say, mysterious process is the birth of honey. How do bees make honey? As with the collection of pollen raw materials, the production of the sweet final bee product is carried out in several stages. The receiving bee processes the nectar (pollen) by evaporating excess moisture, forming a honey mass. Surprisingly, insects are able to adjust the ventilation of the honeycomb so that liquid evaporates from the honeycombs, which already contain microportions of nectar.

When one portion of nectar becomes thick enough, it is moved by the bees to other, free honeycombs. The more ripe the honey, the higher it will be in the tray, and so on in a decreasing trajectory. A special enzyme, invertase, promotes the decomposition of natural sucrose into two components: glucose and fructose. The bee collects a drop of nectar into its crop, then releases it onto its proboscis. Afterwards he pulls in again. And so on several times.

Thus, the nectar is mixed with bee secretions and oxygen. This process starts the process of hydrolysis in honey, which does not stop even after being placed in cells. This is how beekeepers obtain honey, which consists of 75% sugars that are easily digestible, namely the fructose and glucose components.

Video “How bees make honey”

This fascinating video will tell you how striped workers can make nectar from bees.

Without a doubt, this is the sweetest and most delicious product of the bee family. Many people love to spread honey on bread or simply use it to sweeten food. Honey has long been used as a traditional medicine for internal and external use. All these facts indicate its valuable properties.

Stages of honey appearance

Before you start reading, we strongly recommend that you watch a short cartoon, despite the fact that it was created for children, and adults can learn a lot of useful things from it.

How bees make honey

1. When bees collect nectar and pollen, they use their proboscis to inhale or lick liquid, sugary nectar directly from nectar glands and other parts of plants. In addition to nectar, bees also collect so-called honeydew, which is secreted by sap-sucking insects, for example scale insects or aphids. Insects absorb sugar-rich sap from plants (sieve tube sap). They themselves process only a small part of this juice. But the secretions of these insects contain very large amounts of plant sugar, which is collected.
2. All raw materials collected by the bees (nectar and honeydew) enter through the esophagus into the honey crop and remain there until the insect returns back to the hive. The valve between the honey crop and the intestines prevents the mixing of raw materials with the products of the digestive system. Only thanks to the ability to actively open this valve can the bee use some of the collected nectar and honeydew for its own nutrition. Enzyme-rich secretions from the pharyngeal and mandibular glands enter the future honey. Enzymes break down polysaccharides into easily digestible monosaccharides.
3. Upon returning to the hive, the bee regurgitates the contents of the honey crop and gives it to the hive bee (receiver bee) for further processing.
4. During subsequent processing of the harvest and honeydew, the bees reduce the liquid content of the honey to prevent it from fermenting. Dehydration of honey occurs through evaporation, or “aeration.” In this case, the honey, suspended in the form of a drop on the underside of the bee's proboscis, is dried in dry, warm air in the hive. As the honey dries, insects constantly add gland secretions to it.
5. In the next phase of processing, honey is placed in empty cells so that it spreads over a large surface. Due to the ventilation that bees provide by constantly flapping their wings over the honeycombs and at the entrance to the hive, moist air is removed outside. As soon as the honey becomes suitable for long-term storage, the bees seal the cells with wax caps. For a beekeeper, this is one of the signs that the honey is ripe.

Honey is a unique natural product with a huge number of valuable properties. It can be added to food, eaten on its own, and is actively used in medicine. The special taste, wonderful smell and other qualities of this product make it a favorite delicacy of many people. At the same time, even a child knows where it comes from, but few people know how bees make honey.

Its production is a long and complex process. In addition, bees are hard workers and produce so much honey that it is enough not only for the bee family, but also for people. And, of course, it is very interesting to learn how bees produce honey, how bees build honeycombs, how they look for honey-bearing flowers, how a tasty and healthy product is obtained from nectar and pollen.

Bee food

Of course, bees primarily produce this product for own needs.It, like nectar, is the main food for both adult insects and young animals. Working individuals can also feed on pollen, but they can do without it for some time, but without honey they begin to die. Bee brood is also fed with a mixture of honey and pollen. If the hive does not collect good supplies of food, then it faces a difficult winter; by spring the swarm will be weakened and will not be able to collect honey in the summer or will die altogether. So the question of how bees produce honey is very important. In apiaries, special attention is paid to food supplies and the health of the swarm.

So, collecting this product is the main activity of the bee colony. Each of its members has certain functions, but all of them are somehow related to honey collection.

The main concerns of the hive:

• searching for sources of pollen and nectar;
• collecting nectar and delivering it to the hive;
• wax production and honeycomb construction;
• filling honeycombs with honey.

In addition, there is a queen of the hive, which reproduces new family members, and there are individuals who protect the queen, brood and honey reserves of the hive.

Nectar collection

Before you know how honey is made, you need to know that it is a complex, unique process that takes place in several stages.

Before as start collecting honey, bees send scouts in search of honey plants. When the scouts find suitable vegetation, they return to the hive and inform the foraging bees using special movements - the bee dance - about the location they have found, and then fly back to the honey bees. All the pickers follow her. They deliver the collected nectar to the hive in a special bag under the abdomen - practically a second stomach: the first is needed to feed the bee, the second is for carrying “prey”.

To completely fill such a bag completely, a small hardworking insect must fly around one and a half thousand honey plants. Nectar can be collected from all flowering plants. The bee sits on the pollen part of the flower, sucks nectar from it with its goiter and collects pollen - first brushing it with its hind legs onto the brushes of the front ones, and then again transferring it to the hind legs and making a ball of pollen, which is then placed in a special basket on the bee's legs. Such a ball is formed from about a thousand plants.

Scouts fly out daily in search of honey harvest, they are looking for honey plants, where there is the most sugar in the nectar. Only bad weather can force them to take a break. In good weather during the honey harvest season, you can constantly see bees collecting honey and bringing it to the hive.

Collecting pollen and nectar is the initial stage in honey production. Individuals of all generations take part in it. Nectar is transferred to the hive in the crop, which contains special glands. They produce enzymes that break down the glucose in the nectar, disinfect it and enrich it with dextrins. In the hive, the bee moves the food into the cell. Worker bees sort the nectar - some goes to honey production, some remains to feed the brood.

Honey ripening

The future honey remains in the cell for a couple of days, and then young bees begin to deal with it. They also add their enzymes to the nectar and transfer it to the cells, gradually filling all the honeycombs completely.

Temperature inside the hive quite high, insects constantly fan the raw honey with their wings, thanks to which moisture evaporates from it, the product turns into a viscous syrup - this is the answer to the question of how honey appears. Nectar is liquid and more than half consists of water. Honey consists of only 20 percent water.

The honeycombs are hermetically sealed with a wax stopper so that the raw materials inside the cell do not ferment. Then the honey matures in a vacuum.

The entire production cycle lasts about 10 days.

Lumps of pollen - bee bread - are placed in the cells adjacent to the honey cells. Bee bread is a by-product of the hive, but it is also important for the life of the swarm. On the frames, honeycombs with beebread differ from honeycombs with honey in color: beebread - yellow, honey - dark, closer to brown.

How bees make honeycombs

Honey production is impossible without honeycombs. Honeycombs are hexagonal cells of regular geometric shape, where bees store their food - beebread and honey, and raise their offspring. There are several types of honeycombs:

• queen cells - queens are grown in them;
• drone - the name speaks for itself, drones live in them, fertilizing the uterus;
• transitional - they are made for larvae;
• bee - they are filled with the actual products of honey collection.

In the apiary, the honeycombs are built up on a wax sheet - foundation, where the initial frame of the cells is laid. The foundation is secured to a wire frame and lowered into the hive. There the bees are already growing the honeycomb to the required size on both sides of the foundation. There is not a single hole between the honeycombs. All of them, as well as the joints between the cells, are sealed by insects with wax. How do bees make wax? It begins to be produced on its own by special glands when the first flights to honey plants begin.

In one hive there lives one swarm with a queen. Usually about 12 frames are placed in it, from each one they download from one and a half to two kilograms of honey, that is, about 18 kg from the hive, although such a collection is not always obtained. Under favorable circumstances, one bee family can produce up to 200 kg of product - and only about a hundredth of this amount is needed for life!

Honey qualities

If the honey harvest season was hot or, conversely, rainy, there are few honey plants, then, despite the diligence of the bees, the honeycombs are filled slowly, and less honey is produced. There are situations when insects cannot find nectar at all, but they cannot return to the hive without prey and are therefore forced to collect sweet plant secretions(honeydew) and the sweet juice secreted by aphids and scale insects, the so-called honeydew. Honey with honeydew mixed into it, or honeydew, is considered low-grade and has a poor taste. When buying this product after a dry summer, you should always check with the seller where and how bees collect pollen and nectar in the apiary in such weather.

But, in addition to this, both honeydew and honeydew pose a danger to the bees themselves, since in winter the product with their admixture harms the metabolic processes of insects. In a good apiary, a lot of attention is paid to how honey is made and from what to maintain the health of the swarm.

The product collected from different honey plants varies in color and taste. It may also vary in medicinal properties. When purchasing, it would not be superfluous to inquire about its qualities and how the bees extract honey in this apiary, from what flowers.

Any honey is very beneficial for the body, as it has the ability to improve health, increase protective functions, and improve blood circulation. This product is an excellent antiviral agent and a source of energy. It contains such useful substances, How:

• fructose, glucose, sucrose,
• maltose,
• dextrin,
• minerals,
• vitamins.

Therefore, apiaries strive to produce as much of this valuable product as possible. It should be enough to feed larvae, winter food for bees, and food and treatment for people. Bees continuously replenish their reserves - after all, they require a lot of energy to operate the hive. Having learned how bees produce honey, you will have great respect for both these insects, capable of tirelessly working, and for the delicacy itself, because it is the result of a painstaking and complex process that cannot be repeated without honey bees.

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Propolis, as already mentioned, is produced by bees from resinous substances of plant origin, which they collect from tree buds, young branches and leaves of aspen, willow, chestnut and other trees, as well as from some herbaceous plants. The main sources of propolis are birch and poplar, but in addition to them, bees also collect propolis from pine trunks and cones and bring it to the hive in the form of pollen. The plants from which the resinous substances of propolis are taken have bactericidal properties. Bees obtain the bulk of propolis from the shells of flower pollen, impregnated with a resinous substance - balm, which is a solution of resin in essential oil. The balm protects the contents of pollen cells from unfavorable external conditions, including excessive moisture.

The main collection of propolis occurs in late summer and autumn, and very rarely in spring. The tendency of different breeds of bees to collect propolis is not the same. A lot of propolis is collected by bees of the gray mountain Caucasian and Central Russian breeds, much less by Ukrainian bees, this tendency is weakly expressed in Italian bees, and Indian bees - Apis indica, A. florea and A. dorsata, do not collect bee glue at all.

Typically, a bee colony collects 100-150 g of propolis per year. Bees grab resinous substances with their jaws and pull them out in the form of a thread until it breaks. Then, using the claws of its legs, the bee removes the lump of resin from its jaws and places it in the pollen baskets. During collection, the bee mixes resinous substances with the secretion of the maxillary glands. The collection of propolis continues for a long time, and bees - glue collectors - often interrupt it and return to the hive to replenish the honey crop with food. There is an opinion that in the hive the bee never frees itself from propolis; it leaves this work to the hive bees, sometimes waiting for them for a very long time (from an hour to two days).

Hive receiving bees, the so-called “propolis bees,” knead the mass, add wax, and mix it with pollen and salivary gland secretions.

The bulk of propolis is collected from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., since at other times of the day the surfaces from which bees obtain resinous substances are too hard, fragile, and probably inaccessible for mass collection.

Resinous substances released by plants contain volatile aromatic components (terpenes) that act on the hemoreceptors of bee antennae, and thereby create reflexes to search for them.

Bees produce two forms of propolis: more liquid (70% tree bud resin and bee gland secretions) of high quality and viscous (from pollen and wax) of low quality. By adding the secretion of their glands to the resin of plant buds, bees complicate the chemical composition of propolis, making it unique. Propolis is obtained during the initial digestion of flower pollen by bees.

Scientists have established significant differences in the amount of propolis in healthy bee colonies and those sick with European foulbrood (samples were taken using a generally accepted method from 102 bee families of eight farms in the Odessa region). On average, 2.8 times more propolis was obtained from one healthy bee colony than from one sick with European foulbrood. Then one bee colony, sick with European foulbrood, and four healthy colonies were transported to an area rich in propolis raw materials. We carried out measures to treat the sick family and took propolis samples every 30 days during the summer. It turned out that bee colonies began to collect more propolis, and a family that had previously suffered from European foulbrood did so 3-4 times more intensively than healthy ones. That is why the bees of a colony should not be allowed to be completely deprived of propolis.

The Institute of Beekeeping conducted research to identify the behavioral response of bees to sealing cracks of various sizes and in various places in the nest. Frames with slats were placed in the nest of bee families, forming slits with a width of 0.1 to 10 mm. The results of the experiments showed that most of the cracks (83.8%) are filled by bees with propolis, and a smaller part (16.2%) with wax. It has also been established that bees seal cracks ranging in size from 0.1 to 3.5 mm exclusively with propolis, and larger cracks (from 3.5 to 10 mm), as a rule, with wax, and sometimes with a mixture of wax and propolis. In addition, it turned out that bees seal cracks with propolis above the nest much more actively and to a greater depth and width than in the nest and under the nest. The depth of sealing cracks with propolis increases in the hive in the direction from bottom to top: under the nest it is from 1 to 2 mm, in the nest - from 1 to 3 mm, and above the nest - from 1 to 4 mm. This behavior of bees is explained by the fact that in the upper head part of the hive there is a loss of precious heat for them, so they most quickly and reliably seal the cracks in this part of the nest. Thus, the loss of heat from the nest serves as a powerful signal for bees to lay down propolis.

The experimental data obtained serve as a biological basis for specialists in the manufacture of propolis-collecting devices and devices. The vast majority of devices for collecting propolis work by using the instinct of bees to seal up cracks and all holes in the hive with a diameter of less than 4 mm.

Research conducted by scientists in 1990 once again confirmed that the amount of propolis in a hive, like the amount of honey, is a variable value and depends on a number of factors: the breed of bees, geographical and climatic conditions, the design of the hive and the level of its ventilation, the presence of propolis raw materials in nature and the time of year, the strength and condition of bee colonies, the method of collecting propolis.

Honey is a natural product of bees, it contains most of the healing vitamins and properties. It has an irreplaceable taste and amazing smell, honey can be taken as a separate product or with a variety of foods, and medicinal compounds are also made on its basis with the addition of various products. But not all fans of this delicacy know how and where it comes from and who makes honey. This is a long and labor-intensive process.

The honey extraction process itself takes place in 4 stages:

• worker bees chew nectar for a long time and thoroughly and add enzymes to it. Sugar is broken down into fructose and glucose, which makes the product more digestible. Bee saliva has an antibacterial property that helps disinfect nectar and prolong the storage of honey;
• finished products placed in pre-prepared cells, which are filled by 2/3;
• after starts moisture evaporation process. Insects flap their wings, which increases the temperature. Over time, the moisture disappears, forming a viscous syrup;

• honeycomb with substance hermetically sealed sealed with wax stoppers, and in the created vacuum the honey reaches full maturity. The wax plugs contain the secretion of bee saliva, which disinfects the cell, preventing fermentation of the finished product.

Why do bees make honey?

There are several options for answering the question why:

Nectar and honey subsequently produced from it are the main carbohydrate food for these insects.

Both adult bees and brood feed on honey. Working insects, in addition to honey, also consume pollen, and they constantly need the first, and can do without the second for a certain period. In the absence of honey and artificial feeding, bees die en masse. At the moment of swarming, they take with them the required amount of food for several days.

Another possible answer is feeding requirement of brood larvae. From the 4th day, young animals begin to feed on a combination of water, pollen and honey. After birth, the uterus also consumes honey food or a mixture of sugar and honey. Why else do bees make honey? This product is an inexhaustible source for bee colonies; it produces the necessary amount of heat to maintain the required temperature in the hives (34-35 °C).

Bees, during the period of collecting food, drag pollen on their paws, contributing to fertilization of seeds of melliferous vegetation. All summer long they fly from flower to flower, performing what is called fruitful “team work.”

How is honey collected?

The process of honey accumulation is no less interesting. Before the bees begin honey collection, they receive warning from scout bees, in which direction the honey collection is located and what is the distance to it. At this moment, the foraging bees are ready to “go”, waiting for a certain signal from the scout bees. Upon the return of the first such bee to the apiary, insects receive information using information movements(beekeepers recently called it bee “dances”) about the beginning of the honey harvest. The insect very quickly makes an incomplete circle around the honeycombs, then flies in a straight line, wagging its belly, and again makes a semicircle, but in the opposite direction.

If you show bee dance on white paper, a figure eight is formed. In order for all the honey insects to flock to the warning movements, the scout repeats the signaling movements several times. In addition, the “dance” ceremony includes the involvement of several forager bees, who make exactly the same movements, touch her belly, and sometimes take fresh nectar from her. Signaling movements bring all bees in the hive into an active state. After delivering fresh nectar to the bees, the scout flies back, followed by the rest of the insects, mobilized and prepared to begin work.

Scout bees search for new places every day for collecting nectar, where there are honey-bearing plantations with a high concentration of sugar in the nectar. Sometimes bad weather becomes an obstacle to honey collection, causing a forced break, and the foraging bees that fly in to collect pollen return empty. Insects make observations and wait for the resumption of nectar secretion in order to notify the family.

There are males in the bee colony. They do not collect nectar; their function is to fertilize the uterus. After the need for them disappears, the bees kill or drive the drones out of the hive.

What is honey for?

Honey is necessary for promoting health and for the human body as a whole. Has the ability to stabilize and improve the condition of most organs, strengthens protective functions, improves blood circulation, inhibits the aging process, and is a powerful source of energy.

Beneficial features explained by its origin and complex chemical components. Honey is known for its healing, antiviral, and strengthening functions, thanks to which it is widely used in medicine.

How much honey does a bee colony collect?

Each hive contains one swarm of bees with a queen. To collect honey, 11–12 frames are usually placed in a box. From one such frame you can download about 1.5-2 kg of products. This means that in one ordinary hive up to 18 kg of a unique honey delicacy is collected. But when downloading honey, beekeepers do not often manage to get such an amount of honey. Just like insects abundantly fill the middle of the foundation, and leave the outer cells half full. Therefore, from one hive it is possible to obtain 13–14 kg of honey products.

During the hot or rainy season, the amount of honey from one family does not even reach this ratio. Bees diligently collect nectar, but with a small number of honey plants, more time is spent and the cells fill more slowly. In such situations, the yield from one pumping is 7–10 kg.

Honey collection is the main occupation of bees. All efforts of the bee family are aimed at collecting nectar and further preparing honey products. Each individual of the family has certain functions, but despite this, their common goal is honey.