How Do Bees Make Honey?

All bees live on honey, which they make themselves. Only honeybees make honey that people can use. These bees are the only insects which provide food for humans. Bees also make wax to build their nests, and help nature by pollinating flowers as they fly from one to another.

Making honey is the most important job of the worker, or female bee. She flies from flower to flower gathering nectar by sticking her long tube like tongue deep into the flower and sucking out the nectar.

The worker bee stores the nectar in her honey stomach and flies back to the hive. She gives the nectar to a house bee, a bee who stays in the hive, who adds a chemical from her own body. In the honeycomb, the water evaporates from the nectar and, acted upon by the chemicals in the bee’s stomach, it turns into honey. The workers fill the cells of the honeycomb with honey and then put wax caps over the cells.

It takes the nectar from 2,000 flowers to make one tablespoon of honey!