Bees are collectors and transformers of nectar, not producers of the sugary substance. Nectar is a product of the plant kingdom. The bee’s role is to gather this raw material and convert it into a different, more stable food source. This distinction is crucial for understanding the complex relationship between flowering plants and their primary pollinators.
The Source Where Nectar Comes From
Nectar is a sweet, viscous secretion produced by specialized plant glands called nectaries. These nectaries are commonly located within flowers to attract pollinators. They can also be found on other plant structures like leaves and stems, where they are known as extrafloral nectaries.
Nectar primarily consists of water and a mixture of three sugars: sucrose, glucose, and fructose. The sugar concentration can vary widely, ranging from approximately 3% to 80%. The plant produces nectar as a food reward to encourage animals, such as bees, to visit the flower. As bees gather the liquid, they inadvertently transfer pollen, allowing the plant to reproduce.
The Transformation How Bees Process Nectar
The process of turning raw nectar into honey involves both mechanical and chemical alterations performed by the bee colony. A foraging bee uses its proboscis to suck up the nectar, storing it in the honey stomach, or crop. This crop functions solely as a temporary holding vessel, separate from the bee’s digestive stomach.
While the nectar is in the honey stomach, the bee immediately adds enzymes, most notably invertase, which starts the chemical transformation. Back at the hive, the forager transfers the nectar load to a house bee through regurgitation and mouth-to-mouth transfer, known as trophallaxis. This exchange continues, with multiple bees repeatedly ingesting and regurgitating the nectar and adding more enzymes.
The enzyme invertase breaks down the complex sugar sucrose into the simpler sugars, glucose and fructose, which are the main components of finished honey. A critical step is reducing the water content, as raw nectar can be up to 70% water. Bees actively evaporate this excess moisture by depositing the liquid into honeycomb cells. They rapidly fan their wings to create airflow, reducing the water content to below 20%. Once the mixture reaches the correct consistency, the bees cap the cell with beeswax for long-term storage.
Products Bees Actually Create
While bees only collect nectar, they are manufacturers of several other substances integral to the colony’s survival.
Beeswax
The most well-known manufactured product is beeswax, which worker bees secrete from specialized glands on their abdomen. This wax is molded to construct the hexagonal cells of the honeycomb. These cells are used to store honey and raise young.
Propolis
Another product is propolis, often called “bee glue.” This is a resinous material made by mixing tree sap and botanical resins with bee secretions and wax. Bees use propolis as a sealant to fill small gaps, sterilize the hive interior, and provide structural reinforcement.
Royal Jelly
Royal jelly is a milky, protein-rich secretion produced by the hypopharyngeal glands of worker bees. This substance is fed exclusively to queen bees throughout their lives. It is also fed to all young larvae for their first few days, influencing their development.