how and why bees make honey: its quantity and stages of "production»
Bees are unique honey – producing insects. But many people do not know the process of extracting the product. The article covers all aspects of honey extraction, why bees do it, and how nectar turns into honey. This will be especially interesting for novice beekeepers who want to start breeding insects.
Why do bees make honey? Honey is food for all members of the bee family. Insects feed on it not only in winter, but also in summer. When the cold season comes, the inhabitants of the hive uncork the cells and are saturated with high-calorie honey product, which provides them with the necessary energy. Then the insects begin to actively flap their wings, which helps to maintain an optimal climate in the home. Waste of the received energy at the required temperature requires bees to recover as soon as possible – insects need food. In addition to honey, workers need parchment, called "bee bread" – it replaces protein. In a bee family, there may be more than a couple of thousand individuals who need large reserves for the winter. Due to the fact that insects are Thrifty and prudent, most of the bee stocks are a valuable food product for people. Experienced beekeepers who care about the well – being of their bee colonies leave the required amount of honey in the hive for the winter, so that the workers can live until spring and not die- the rest is taken away. Beekeepers, who think only of profit, immediately collect all the supplies, and feed the bees with sugar. But this product can not become a full-fledged food for insects, because it lacks the necessary vitamins, minerals and enzymes. Because of this, bees, feeding on syrup, become weak, their endurance and performance are significantly reduced. When warm days come, it is difficult for insects to fully start collecting honey.
How do bees make honey and turn it into nectar?
The passage of a chemical reaction contributes to the transformation of nectar into viscous honey. After the bees return with a full stomach of nectar, the worker insects suck it out of the field worker's mouth with their proboscis. Some of the bees are left to feed the larvae and young individuals, but most of the insects chew for some time. This is the chemical fermentation of nectar. Nectar is exposed to a variety of enzymes that are part of the saliva of bees, turning into a useful sweetness. When processing occurs, the excess liquid evaporates, and sucrose, under the influence of a special enzyme (invertase) is broken down into fructose and glucose – they are easily absorbed by the body. Finished products contain only 5% sucrose. In addition, bee saliva has a bactericidal effect, so that stocks can be stored for a long time. To ensure the evaporation of moisture, the workers transfer the sweet liquid to the honeycomb, filling them 2/3, then begin to actively work with the porches to increase the temperature in the home. The processed product is placed in special hexahedral cells and sealed with wax lids, which avoids the penetration of air and moisture, because this can lead to fermentation. In the comb there is a further aging of honey.
Perga insects are also placed in the honeycomb. Distinctive characteristics of storages are their shades – honey combs are dominated by dark yellow, almost brown, and pergovye – light yellow. Production lasts from 7 to 14 days. The quality of products directly depends on the moisture content: the less water in honey, the better it is. In extreme heat, the nectar is mixed with a sweet liquid secreted by aphids, which is called padyu. This was the reason for obtaining the names of this low-grade honey – honeydew. Also, the sweet juice of plants, called honeydew, can be added to the honey product. Food from paddy and honeydew is dangerous for bees, as it has a negative impact on metabolic processes.
You can see how bees collect honey in an interesting video. Here you can learn more about how insects collect honey, how they do it, and what happens next:
Stages of honey extraction honey collection is the main occupation of bees, so all their work is necessarily directed to ensure this process. To do this, all responsibilities are clearly distributed among all members of the bee family. How it happens: the Queen lays eggs, thereby ensuring the extension of the bee genus. The scouts go in search of honey plants, and the worker bees build honeycomb, collect pollen and nectar. Even newborn bees are busy with work – they feed the larvae, clean the house and keep it at an optimal temperature. Bees extract nectar from the flowers of honey plants. Workers start working in the spring, when the plants begin to bloom. The first to "hunt" are scouts – a well-developed sense of smell allows you to quickly find flowering plants, take nectar from them and return home. In the home, the bees tell their family members where the plant is located, from which they can collect nectar. Bees communicate the kind of dance moves. Then the scouts and collecting bees go to the found place. Workers collect honey with a proboscis, which easily penetrates into the flower. The taste qualities of the liquid are easily recognized by insects with the help of receptors – they are located on the legs. The bee sits on the plant, sucks the nectar with its proboscis, and with its hind limbs, on which special brushes are located, begins to collect pollen, and then makes a ball out of it. This lump is placed in a special basket located on the lower leg of the insect. One such ball can be obtained after collecting nectar from many plants.
Bees are insects that have two stomachs. In one of them, food is digested, and the second serves as a storage for the accumulation of nectar – it holds about 70 mg of nectar. But if the worker needs to make a long-distance flight, it consumes about 25-30% of the reserves to restore the spent forces. A working bee can fly up to 8 km per day, but long-distance flights can be dangerous for it. The optimal distance for honey collection is 2-3 km. In this case, the insect can process about 12 hectares of the field. To fill the nectar collection, the bee needs to fly around about one and a half thousand plants, and to collect 1 kilogram of nectar – to make from 50 to 150 thousand flights. When collecting honey, insects are completely enveloped in pollen. Then, after making a flyby, the bees transfer pollen and pollinate the flowers, ensuring plant reproduction and contributing to high yields. After filling the collections with nectar, the collectors return to the hive, where they pass the nectar to the receiving bees. Insects are engaged in precise distribution: some are left to feed the larvae, the rest is sent for processing.
Honey production by the bee
When there is nectar in the insect's mouth, the bee fills it with its own secret from the salivary gland. The secret is rich in a variety of enzymes that turn nectar into a healthy and delicious honey product.
Features of breeding and the amount of honey
The amount of honey collected can vary greatly depending on the region, the location of the apiary, the weather, the breed of bees and their care, and the honeybees growing nearby. If the previous winter was very cold, and spring came late, the bee family will collect much less product than usual. Favorable conditions (warm and humid air) contribute to the collection of a large amount of honey.
Especially on the volume of honey collection affects the breed of bees. But when choosing a breed, you need to take into account the region and climatic features of the area. For some regions, it is better to choose the Carpathian bee, for others – the Central Russian one. The size and quality of the hive also affects the amount of product obtained. It is optimal to choose multi-hull houses. At the same time, you need to pay attention to the fact that not all cells are filled with stocks, there must always be free cells available. It is important that the beekeeper has experience in breeding bees, as well as properly caring for insects. An experienced beekeeper can only keep strong families and high-quality, fertile Queens. So it provides optimal conditions for their life, reproduction and wintering, constantly monitors the body of the hive and its frames, installs additional honeycombs, prevents swarming of bees and, if necessary, transports the apiary to another area, where there are honey grasses, shrubs or trees. Usually one pumping out of the hive allows you to get 13-18 kilograms of a unique product. In a very hot or rainy summer, the indicators are significantly reduced – up to 10 kilos. Favorable conditions contribute to the collection of up to 200 kg of useful sweets from one bee family. The honey collection is a major activity of the bees. Insects are fully laid out, give their strength to collect nectar and further harvesting of honey products. Each bee from a large family performs certain functions, but they still have a common goal – collecting nectar and processing it into useful honey.
Why do bees make honey? Honey is food for all members of the bee family. Insects feed on it not only in winter, but also in summer. When the cold season comes, the inhabitants of the hive uncork the cells and are saturated with high-calorie honey product, which provides them with the necessary energy. Then the insects begin to actively flap their wings, which helps to maintain an optimal climate in the home. Waste of the received energy at the required temperature requires bees to recover as soon as possible – insects need food. In addition to honey, workers need parchment, called "bee bread" – it replaces protein. In a bee family, there may be more than a couple of thousand individuals who need large reserves for the winter. Due to the fact that insects are Thrifty and prudent, most of the bee stocks are a valuable food product for people. Experienced beekeepers who care about the well – being of their bee colonies leave the required amount of honey in the hive for the winter, so that the workers can live until spring and not die- the rest is taken away. Beekeepers, who think only of profit, immediately collect all the supplies, and feed the bees with sugar. But this product can not become a full-fledged food for insects, because it lacks the necessary vitamins, minerals and enzymes. Because of this, bees, feeding on syrup, become weak, their endurance and performance are significantly reduced. When warm days come, it is difficult for insects to fully start collecting honey.
How do bees make honey and turn it into nectar?
The passage of a chemical reaction contributes to the transformation of nectar into viscous honey. After the bees return with a full stomach of nectar, the worker insects suck it out of the field worker's mouth with their proboscis. Some of the bees are left to feed the larvae and young individuals, but most of the insects chew for some time. This is the chemical fermentation of nectar. Nectar is exposed to a variety of enzymes that are part of the saliva of bees, turning into a useful sweetness. When processing occurs, the excess liquid evaporates, and sucrose, under the influence of a special enzyme (invertase) is broken down into fructose and glucose – they are easily absorbed by the body. Finished products contain only 5% sucrose. In addition, bee saliva has a bactericidal effect, so that stocks can be stored for a long time. To ensure the evaporation of moisture, the workers transfer the sweet liquid to the honeycomb, filling them 2/3, then begin to actively work with the porches to increase the temperature in the home. The processed product is placed in special hexahedral cells and sealed with wax lids, which avoids the penetration of air and moisture, because this can lead to fermentation. In the comb there is a further aging of honey.
Perga insects are also placed in the honeycomb. Distinctive characteristics of storages are their shades – honey combs are dominated by dark yellow, almost brown, and pergovye – light yellow. Production lasts from 7 to 14 days. The quality of products directly depends on the moisture content: the less water in honey, the better it is. In extreme heat, the nectar is mixed with a sweet liquid secreted by aphids, which is called padyu. This was the reason for obtaining the names of this low-grade honey – honeydew. Also, the sweet juice of plants, called honeydew, can be added to the honey product. Food from paddy and honeydew is dangerous for bees, as it has a negative impact on metabolic processes.
You can see how bees collect honey in an interesting video. Here you can learn more about how insects collect honey, how they do it, and what happens next:
Stages of honey extraction honey collection is the main occupation of bees, so all their work is necessarily directed to ensure this process. To do this, all responsibilities are clearly distributed among all members of the bee family. How it happens: the Queen lays eggs, thereby ensuring the extension of the bee genus. The scouts go in search of honey plants, and the worker bees build honeycomb, collect pollen and nectar. Even newborn bees are busy with work – they feed the larvae, clean the house and keep it at an optimal temperature. Bees extract nectar from the flowers of honey plants. Workers start working in the spring, when the plants begin to bloom. The first to "hunt" are scouts – a well-developed sense of smell allows you to quickly find flowering plants, take nectar from them and return home. In the home, the bees tell their family members where the plant is located, from which they can collect nectar. Bees communicate the kind of dance moves. Then the scouts and collecting bees go to the found place. Workers collect honey with a proboscis, which easily penetrates into the flower. The taste qualities of the liquid are easily recognized by insects with the help of receptors – they are located on the legs. The bee sits on the plant, sucks the nectar with its proboscis, and with its hind limbs, on which special brushes are located, begins to collect pollen, and then makes a ball out of it. This lump is placed in a special basket located on the lower leg of the insect. One such ball can be obtained after collecting nectar from many plants.
Bees are insects that have two stomachs. In one of them, food is digested, and the second serves as a storage for the accumulation of nectar – it holds about 70 mg of nectar. But if the worker needs to make a long-distance flight, it consumes about 25-30% of the reserves to restore the spent forces. A working bee can fly up to 8 km per day, but long-distance flights can be dangerous for it. The optimal distance for honey collection is 2-3 km. In this case, the insect can process about 12 hectares of the field. To fill the nectar collection, the bee needs to fly around about one and a half thousand plants, and to collect 1 kilogram of nectar – to make from 50 to 150 thousand flights. When collecting honey, insects are completely enveloped in pollen. Then, after making a flyby, the bees transfer pollen and pollinate the flowers, ensuring plant reproduction and contributing to high yields. After filling the collections with nectar, the collectors return to the hive, where they pass the nectar to the receiving bees. Insects are engaged in precise distribution: some are left to feed the larvae, the rest is sent for processing.
Honey production by the bee
When there is nectar in the insect's mouth, the bee fills it with its own secret from the salivary gland. The secret is rich in a variety of enzymes that turn nectar into a healthy and delicious honey product.
Features of breeding and the amount of honey
The amount of honey collected can vary greatly depending on the region, the location of the apiary, the weather, the breed of bees and their care, and the honeybees growing nearby. If the previous winter was very cold, and spring came late, the bee family will collect much less product than usual. Favorable conditions (warm and humid air) contribute to the collection of a large amount of honey.
Especially on the volume of honey collection affects the breed of bees. But when choosing a breed, you need to take into account the region and climatic features of the area. For some regions, it is better to choose the Carpathian bee, for others – the Central Russian one. The size and quality of the hive also affects the amount of product obtained. It is optimal to choose multi-hull houses. At the same time, you need to pay attention to the fact that not all cells are filled with stocks, there must always be free cells available. It is important that the beekeeper has experience in breeding bees, as well as properly caring for insects. An experienced beekeeper can only keep strong families and high-quality, fertile Queens. So it provides optimal conditions for their life, reproduction and wintering, constantly monitors the body of the hive and its frames, installs additional honeycombs, prevents swarming of bees and, if necessary, transports the apiary to another area, where there are honey grasses, shrubs or trees. Usually one pumping out of the hive allows you to get 13-18 kilograms of a unique product. In a very hot or rainy summer, the indicators are significantly reduced – up to 10 kilos. Favorable conditions contribute to the collection of up to 200 kg of useful sweets from one bee family. The honey collection is a major activity of the bees. Insects are fully laid out, give their strength to collect nectar and further harvesting of honey products. Each bee from a large family performs certain functions, but they still have a common goal – collecting nectar and processing it into useful honey.