Vicky | BLOGGER
How Bees Collect Nectar and Make it into Honey
An American journalist, Annalee Newitz, once said a
famous quote in an interview in 2014, “If we lose bees, we
may be looking at losing apples and oranges. We may be
looking at losing a great deal of other crops, as well, and
other animals that depend on those crops.” This quote shows
that how closely human beings’ lives are related to bees. Bees
fly diligently not only to collect nectar for themselves but help pollinate flowers to grow crops and fruits for us. The honey we are eating nowadays is also attributed to bees. However, have you ever wondered how bees collect nectar and make it into honey? Is it easy for them to produce such a large amount of honey? The process contains three main stages to explain their busy daily routines.
The first stage is to find the source of nectar and collect it. As Seeley (1991) pointed out that bees will choose the source technically. A few forager bees go out first and select the most abundant source. After that, they use their straw-like mouthpart which is called a proboscis to suck up the nectar and store it in their honey stomach. The radius for a bee to collect nectar is usually between 2 and 3 kilometers, and the farthest flying distance can reach about 14 kilometers. According to the different quality and amount of nectar of flowers, this stage may require uncertain time and distance for each forager bee to find the best source.
Next, announcing the location of the flowers to other worker bees is the
second stage of collecting the nectar. After the forager bees collect enough
nectar, they go back to the hive and inform others where the flower patch is
sothat they can draft more bees to collect as much nectar as possible. They
communicate with each other by dancing. There are two different kinds of
dances: the round dance and the waggle dance. The round dance is usually used when the source is close to their hive. The bee runs in a circle, switches to the opposite direction from time to time, and repeats it several times. This dance cannot
tell the precise location or the direction of
the flowers while the waggle dance can.
Generally, the bee waggles in a straight line, and the length of the
line indicates the rough distance between their hive and the patch.
Furthermore, the special angle which it waggles away from the sun represents the direction. Through these two dance languages, they can deliver the information to other fellows easily and effectively.
Finally, they are able to make the nectar into honey and seal it to preserve the honey. When the worker bees return to the hive with a load of nectar in their sacs, they start to pass the nectar mouth-to-mouth from bee to bee. During the process of sucking and spitting out nectar, the enzymes in saliva mix with the nectar and change it into honey, and the mixture will gradually become less hydrated. Additionally, they will spread the honey over the honeycomb and flutter their wings beside the honeycomb to speed up the dehydration of the honey. Then, they store the honey into the cells of the honeycomb and cap with beeswax to prepare for the cold weather in the future. In order to make a great amount of honey to save for the prospective off season, they may have to visit around 1,000,000 flowers and travel approximately 450,000 kilometers to collect enough nectar and make a good effort on it, which is a massive work in their lives.
In sum, bees experience three different stages to collect and process the nectar into honey: locating the flower, informing the position, and making honey. Through the three clear stages, it turns out that making honey is not simple at all, and that human beings will not be able to succeed in agriculture without bees. Thus, people should always appreciate and cherish the gain which is brought from them.
Sources:
Pictures are retrieved from:
Background:https://reurl.cc/NZKNZe
References:
Seeley, T.D., (1995). The Wisdom of the Hive.
Retrieved from: https://reurl.cc/73QRpD