Honey is an animal product that humans have been using in caves for life, in the past excess honey was collected in wild hives, currently bees have undergone a certain degree of domestication and their honey and other by-products can be obtained through beekeeping. Honey is not only a powerful and energetic food, it also has medicinal properties.
Want to know more? In this article by Animal Expert you will be able to know how the bees make honey, because we will detail the process they follow to prepare it and what it is for, find out below!
- The honey collection begins with a dance.
- A worker bee goes in search of flowers and.
- During this search.
- Can travel long distances (more than 8 km).
- When she finds a potential source of food.
- She quickly goes to her hive to tell her friends to help her collect so much food.
- As much as possible.
The way bees should inform others is a dance, by which they are able to know with great precision what the food source is, how far it is and how abundant it is, during this dance the bees vibrate their abdomen so that I can say all this to the rest of the hive.
Once the group is informed, they go out to look for the flowers, from which the bees can obtain two substances: nectar, from the female part of the flower, and pollen, which they collect from the male part.two substances are for.
Bees use nectar to make honey. When they reach a nectar-rich flower, they suck it with their trunk, which is a horn-shaped oral organ.The nectar is stored in special bags connected to the stomach, so if the bee needs energy to keep flying, it can take it out.it’s the accumulated nectar.
When they can’t carry any more nectar, they return to the hive and, once they arrive, deposit it in a honeycomb with salivary enzymes. With strong and sustained movements of their wings, bees dehydrate the nectar by evaporating the water., in addition to nectar, bees add special enzymes that they have in their saliva, necessary for the transformation into honey.Once the enzymes are added and the nectar dehydrated, the bees close the honeycomb with a unique wax, produced by these animals through glands called wax glands.Over time, this mixture of nectar and enzymes is converted into honey.
Did you ever think honey production was the vomit of bees?As you can see, part of it is, but not only, because the transformation of nectar into honey is a process external to the animal.Nectar is also not vomiting, as it is not a partially digested food, but a sweet substance of the flowers that bees can store in their bodies.
Honey, along with pollen, is the food eaten by bee larvae.Pollen collected from flowers is not digestible directly by bee larvae, but should be stored in honeycombs.Bees add salivary enzymes, honey to prevent air and wax from sealing the honeycomb.After a while, pollen becomes digestible by the larvae.
Honey provides glucose to larvae and pollen provides proteins
Have you ever wondered why there are different types of honey in the markets?Each plant species produces nectar and pollen of different consistency, smell and color. Depending on the flowers that bees in a hive can access, the honey that will be produced will have a different color and flavor.
Bees are animals essential to the environment because, thanks to pollination, the planet’s ecosystems remain consistent.
That’s why we invited you to discover in another Animal Expert article: what if the bees didn’t disappear?
If you would like to read articles similar to, we recommend that you visit our Curiosities section of the animal world.