"A bee is an exquisite chemist!" said by the royal beekeeper of King Charles II of England. For bees, they have to work diligently and carefully for their honey production. Though the process of making honey is quite complicated, they still make it through the whole bee colony. Also, honey is a major food source for bees to sustain their lives, particularly during the severe winter. Consequently, it is important for them to know how to make honey and work hard in the beehive. There are three steps for bees to create honey: collecting the nectar, turning the nectar into syrup, evaporating the syrup with beeswax capping the honeycomb.

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        The first step in the process of creating honey is collecting nectar from flowering plants. Forager worker bees fly out from the hive and forage within a radius of five miles of their hive. As the bees travel from flowers to flowers, they go into the center of the flower and collect the nectar from it. When they collect the nectar, they use a straw-like tongue, called a proboscis (see Photo 1), to slide down into the flower and suck out the nectar. The bees will store the nectar in their honey stomach, which can hold up to 70 mg of nectar and weigh almost as much as the bee itself. Afterwards, the bees continue to forage, and they typically visit 50 to 100 flowers per trip. Until the honey stomach is filled with the nectar, the forager worker bees go back to the hive.

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        Next, the bees regurgitate and turn the nectar into syrup after returning to the hive. Within the hive, the forager worker bees regurgitate the nectar to the house bees (see Photo 2). The house bees then chew the nectar for about 30 minutes and pass it from one bee to another until its water content is reduced from about 70 percent to 20 percent. When the nectar is in the bee’s mouth, it is mixed with an enzyme called invertase. The invertase breaks down the complex sugars (sucrose) of the nectar into two simpler sugars (glucose and fructose) that are less prone to crystallize. After this process, the syrup is formed, and the house bees regurgitate the syrup into the cells of honeycomb (see Photo 3), which is made especially for honey production.

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        At last, the bees fan their wings to evaporate the syrup, and they cover the honeycomb with beeswax. The syrup stored in the honeycomb is still wet, so the bees fan their wings over it, which creates airflow around the honeycomb and helps evaporate out the water. Later, the syrup becomes thicker, and the water content is reduced to around 17 percent, which makes it less likely to be contaminated by bacteria and mold while stored inside the hive. Once the honey is to the right consistency, the bees will cap the cells with beeswax (see Photo 4), sealing the honey into the honeycomb for later consumption.

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        In conclusion, bees produce honey with three steps. First, they collect the nectar from the heart of flowers. Second, they regurgitate the nectar one by one, and turn it into syrup. Finally, they evaporate the syrup by fanning wings and cap it with beeswax. It is really amazing for the bee colony to cooperate with each other with their perfect teamwork. As a result of their hard work, people can taste the sweet honey joyfully and use this important ingredient to make food.