How bees make delicious and healthy honey

Honey is a natural product of bees, it contains most of the healing vitamins and properties... It has an irreplaceable taste and amazing smell, honey can be taken both as a separate product and with a variety of foods, and on its basis medicinal compounds are made with the addition of various products. But not all fans of this delicacy know how and where it comes from and who makes honey. This is a long and laborious process.

How honey is made

The process of extracting honey itself takes place in 4 stages:

• worker bees chew the nectar thoroughly and for a long time and add enzymes to it. Sugar is broken down into fructose and glucose, which makes the product more digestible. Bee saliva has an antibacterial property that helps to disinfect nectar and prolong the storage of honey;
• finished products placed in pre-prepared cellswhich are filled by 2/3;
• after starts moisture evaporation process... Insects flap their wings, which increases the temperature. Over time, moisture disappears, forming a viscous syrup;

• honeycomb with substance hermetically sealed with wax stoppers, and in the created vacuum honey reaches full maturity. The wax plugs contain the secretion of bee saliva, which disinfects the cell, preventing the fermentation of the finished product.

Why do bees harvest honey?

There are several options for answering the question why:

Nectar and honey produced from it later are the main carbohydrate food for these insects.

Another answer is the need to feed brood larvae... Young animals already from 4 days begin to feed on a combination of water, pollen and honey. The uterus, after her birth, also consumes honey food or a mixture of sugar and honey. What else do bees produce honey for? This product is an inexhaustible source for bee colonies, it produces the necessary amount of heat to maintain the required temperature in the hives (34-35 ° C).

Bees, during the collection period, drag pollen on their paws, contributing to fertilization of seeds of melliferous vegetation... All summer they fly from flower to flower, performing the so-called fruitful "joint work".

How is honey collected?

The process of honey accumulation is no less interesting. Before the bees start harvesting, they receive scout bee warning, in which direction is the honey collection and what is the distance to it. At this point, the collecting bees are ready to "start", waiting for a certain signal from the scout bees. Upon the return of the first such bee to the apiary, insects get information through information movements (the beekeepers recently called it "dances") about the beginning of honey collection. The insect very quickly makes an incomplete circle along the combs, then flies in a straight line, wagging its belly, and again makes a semicircle, but in the opposite direction.

If show bee "dance" on white paper, an eight is formed.In order for all the honey insects to flock to the warning movements, the scout repeats the signaling movements several times. In addition, the “dance” ceremony includes the attraction of several collecting bees, who do exactly the same movements, touch her belly, and sometimes take fresh nectar from her. Signaling movements bring all the bees in the hive into an active state. After delivering fresh nectar to the bees, the scout flies back, and the rest of the insects follow, mobilized and prepared for the start of labor activity.

Scout bees are looking for new places every day for collecting nectar, where honey plantations with a high concentration of sugar in the nectar. Sometimes bad weather becomes an obstacle for honey collection, making a forced break, and the collecting bees that have arrived for pollen return empty. Insects observe and wait for nectar production to resume in order to notify the family.

What is honey for?

Honey is essential for health promotion and for the human body as a whole. Has the ability to stabilize and improve the condition of most organs, strengthens protective functions, improves blood circulation, inhibits the aging process, is a powerful source of energy.

Beneficial features are explained by its origin and complex chemical constituents. Honey is known for its healing, anti-viral, strengthening functions, thanks to which it has wide application in medicine.

How much honey does a bee colony collect?

Each hive is home to one swarm of bees with a queen. To collect honey, 11-12 frames are placed in a box as a standard... From one such frame, you can download about 1.5-2 kg of products. This means that up to 18 kg of a unique honey treat is collected in one ordinary hive. But when downloading honey, beekeepers do not often manage to get that much honey. So, as insects abundantly fill the middle of the foundation, and the outer cells are left half full. Therefore, from one hive it is possible to obtain 13-14 kg of honey products.

During hot or rainy seasons, the amount of honey from one family does not even reach this ratio. Bees diligently collect nectar, but with a small number of melliferous plants, time is spent more, and the cells fill up more slowly. In such situations, the yield from one pumping is 7–10 kg.

Honey collection is the main occupation of bees... All efforts of the bee colony are aimed at collecting nectar and further procurement of honey products. Each individual of the family has certain functions, but despite this, their common goal is honey.