How Do Bees Make Honey?

Honey is a thick and sweet, sugary substance produced by bees. The chemical makeup of honey contains various proportions of glucose, fructose, oil, water and special enzymes made only be the bees themselves.

Some interesting facts about honey:

• Honey is one of the easiest foods to digest.
• Many cough syrups contain honey due to its thick, smooth texture which soothes one’s throat.
• Honey has the unique ability to absorb air, and it is frequently used as a moistening agent for baking.
• There are numerous types of honey flavors and colors. The flavor and color of honey is dependent upon the age of the honey, and the specific kinds of flowers from which the nectar was taken.

A bee colony begins the honey making process by flying to a flower and collecting some of its nectar. Many plants utilize nectar as a means of encouraging different kinds of insects (such as wasps, bees, butterflies, and so on) to feed at the flower.

During this process of nectar collecting, the insects transport pollen grains from one flower to another, which helps the process of pollination. The bees use their long tongues to suck the nectar out and store it in sacs within their bodies while traveling from flower to flower. After their storage sacs are full of these sweet juices (nectar), the field bees go back to their hives and regurgitate their nectar storage into the mouths of house bees.

These house bees are appointed to the job of contributing enzymes to the nectar from their bodies. The enzymes help to evaporate the water in the nectar, which in turn transforms the nectar into honey. Only then is the nectar placed and stored in a honeycomb cell. Over a period of time, the nectar matures and becomes ripened honey.

Nearly all flower nectars are analogous to plain sugar water, or water mixed with sucrose. Nectar may also incorporate other helpful substances. To create honey, two things occur:

• The bees' enzymes transform the sucrose (a disaccharide) into fructose and glucose (which are monosaccharides).
• A majority of the moisture must evaporate, to the tune of about 18% water in honey.

One particular enzyme called invertase converts nearly all of the sucrose into two six-carbon sugars, fructose and glucose. A tiny amount of the glucose is assaulted by another enzyme called glucose oxidase, which converts it into both hydrogen peroxide and gluconic acid.

The gluconic acid creates an antiseptic acid medium with a low pH that prevents microbes from proliferating such as mold, bacteria, and fungi. The hydrogen peroxide provides short-term protection against these harmful organisms while the honey undergoes its ripening process or is further diluted for larval food. The reduced moisture content of nectar that honey bees create also provides protection against microbes by giving it a high osmotic pressure.

This removal of water is accomplished by outwardly manipulating the nectar in the bees' mouth parts. It is then placed on the top side of cells in tiny droplets, so that they can be fanned with their wings, which increases air movement and carries any excess moisture away.

The end result is a very stable food source, which naturally resists bacteria, fungi and molds, all of which allows honey to last for several years without refrigeration!