Honey bees produce a sweet substance that serves as their colony’s food source. The creation of this golden liquid begins far from the hive and involves specialized anatomy and collective labor. This transformation converts thin, sugary flower nectar into a thick, stable, and long-lasting food.
The Bee’s Job: Finding Flowers and Collecting Nectar
The honey-making journey starts with forager bees, the oldest members of the colony, who leave the hive to search for flowers. These workers locate and harvest nectar, a sugary liquid plants produce to attract pollinators. The bee uses its specialized mouthpart, a long, straw-like tongue called a proboscis, to suck the nectar from the base of the bloom.
The forager does not swallow the nectar for immediate digestion. Instead, it stores the liquid in a separate internal organ known as the honey stomach, or crop. This crop functions primarily as a temporary transport vessel. To fill this pouch, a single bee may need to visit hundreds of flowers during one foraging trip.
The conversion process begins immediately after the nectar is collected, even while the forager flies back to the hive. As the liquid sits in the crop, the bee adds enzymes from its body, starting the chemical breakdown. A forager bee can carry nearly half its body weight in this sweet liquid before returning to the hive.
Back at the Hive: Turning Nectar into Sticky Honey
Upon returning to the colony, the forager bee transfers the collected nectar to a younger “house bee” in a mouth-to-mouth exchange called trophallaxis. This is the first step of a relay where the nectar is passed between multiple house bees. Each time the liquid is exchanged, the receiving bee adds more specialized enzymes, intensifying the chemical transformation.
The primary added enzyme is invertase, which breaks down the complex sugar sucrose found in flower nectar. Invertase breaks the sucrose molecule into two simpler sugars, glucose and fructose. These simpler sugars are more stable and contribute to honey’s long shelf life and thick texture.
The newly enzyme-infused liquid is still thin and watery, containing up to 70 to 80% water, which would cause it to spoil quickly. To resolve this, the bees begin a multi-stage process of dehydration to remove excess moisture. Initially, the bees repeatedly regurgitate a small droplet of the nectar and expose it to the warm, dry air of the hive, encouraging evaporation.
Once partially dried, the house bees deposit the liquid into the hexagonal cells of the wax honeycomb. Worker bees throughout the colony then vigorously fan their wings near the comb, creating a constant internal airflow. This collective ventilation forces the remaining water to evaporate until the liquid reaches a moisture content of around 17 to 18 percent. The liquid is then considered ripe honey, and the bees seal the cell with a protective wax cap, preserving the food.
Why Bees Store Honey for the Colony
Honey is the primary energy source for the entire bee colony, stockpiled for long-term survival. Bees cannot forage when flowers are not blooming or when the weather is too cold or rainy. The stored honey provides the carbohydrates necessary to power the bees’ flight muscles and keep the hive warm throughout the winter.
The chemical transformation and water reduction process makes the honey perfect for long-term storage. The high sugar concentration and low water content prevent spoilage. This preserved food source is distributed among the entire population, feeding adult workers, the queen, and developing larvae. Without this stored honey, the colony could not sustain itself during times of scarcity.