Honey ... Nectar of the Gods

Jars of honey sitting on working hive

Now that we know what everyone’s doing in the hive … let’s talk about one of the products from the hive … HONEY!!

Everyone is pretty familiar with this sweet tasting treat! But what is it? And where does it come from?

Notice her proboscis

Forager in a crocus

Remember our foraging bee, the older worker bee? She’s the one you spot busily buzzing from flower to flower. While she’s rummaging around in the flower, her proboscis, or straw-like tongue, is sipping up the minuscule droplets of sweet nectar the flower has to offer. This nectar is carried in a honey-stomach in her abdomen. Our industrious foraging worker will visit between 50 and 100 of the same type of flower before she is ready to return to the hive.

The nectar transfer

Enzymes in her honey stomach have already started the process of turning nectar into honey, but she can’t complete this process. Upon returning to her hive she goes in search of a waiting nurse bee. Our foraging bee will transfer the collected nectar to this younger bee. It is enzymes in her honey-stomach that finish the honey making process.

Once this is complete, our nurse bee will deposit the honey into one of the sterilized combs. She does this by entering the cell upside down and depositing the honey on the top of the cell wall so it can drip down. This technique helps to dry or dehydrate the honey. Honey must have a moisture content of 17.8% or less or … it will start to ferment and become mead! (More about this favorite subject in another post!!)

Worker bees cleaning up some honey

In moister climates, house bees need to help the dehydration process and will festoon, or fan (rapidly flap their wings to create air flow), over open honey cells. In drier climates, like southern Alberta and the Yukon, honey generally comes into the hive dry enough that this step can be skipped. Once filled and cured, the honey cell is capped with wax, and will keep for ever and ever!

Honey is the staple of a worker bee’s and drone’s diet. It is very important to the worker bees that they have produced enough honey to last the winter, or in warmer climates, to survive between nectar flows.

It is fortunate for those of us who love honey, that these hard working honey bees are so efficient. They usually make more honey than they need, and are generally willing to share some of their bounty with their beekeeper!

Capped honey at top of frame, open cells with honey below

Not ever, should this gift from the bees be taken for granted. I remain in awe, and truly thankful, every time I use honey in my coffee, tea or on a piece of toast. For one little honey bee only makes between 1/12 and ¼ teaspoon of honey in her entire lifetime (about six weeks). 

A 454 gram jar (one pound) of honey contains the nectar of two million flowers and an accumulation of 80,000 km (55,000 miles) of flying. It constitutes the life work of anywhere from 300 to 600 worker bees! Honey is pretty precious stuff!

A finished honey frame ready for extraction