How Do Honeybees Make Honey?

A honeybee starts the honey making process by visiting a flower. With luck, the flower contains nectar, and the bee sucks some of the nectar up with a little straw (a proboscis) built into its mouth. Most flower nectars are like sugar water; there is a little sugar mixed with water. Nectars can contain other beneficial substances as well. To make honey, two things happen.

The first thing uses enzymes. One enzyme that bees produce turns the sucrose in the nectar into glucose and fructose. Another enzyme turns some of the glucose into an acid and hydrogen peroxide. By making honey acidic, it kills any bacteria that get into the honey.

The second thing uses evaporation to get rid of the extra water. Most of the moisture has to be evaporated, so that honey is only about 18 percent water. Bees evaporate the extra water by putting little drops of nectar in the hive and fanning it with their wings.

Photo courtesy: Photo courtesy PDPhoto.org

Honey is a very stable food. It naturally resists molds, fungi and other bacteria, allowing it to last for years without refrigeration.

Beeware! Most bees make bee venom, also called apitoxin. There is a gland in the abdomen that makes and holds bee venom. The gland is attached to a stinger. A tiny amount of apitoxin causes a very sharp pain when the bee injects it under your skin. For most people, the pain is the only reaction, but a small number of people (about one out of 100) are violently allergic to bee venom. Their bodies react to bee venom by swelling and itching. Some people can die when their bodies completely overreact to the venom and go into shock.