Western Honey Bee - Honey Production

Honey Production

Bees produce honey by collecting nectar, which is a clear liquid consisting of nearly 80% water, with complex sugars. The collecting bees store the nectar in a second stomach and return to the hive, where worker bees remove the nectar. The worker bees digest the raw nectar for about 30 minutes using enzymes to break up the complex sugars into simpler ones. Raw honey is then spread out in empty honeycomb cells to dry, which reduces the water content to less than 20%. When nectar is being processed, honey bees create a draft through the hive by fanning with their wings. Once dried, the cells of the honeycomb are sealed (capped) with wax to preserve the honey.

When a hive detects smoke, many bees become remarkably nonaggressive; this is speculated to be a defense mechanism. Wild colonies generally live in hollow trees, and when bees detect smoke, they are assumed to prepare to evacuate from a forest fire, carrying as much food reserve as they can. To do this, they will go to the nearest honey storage cells and gorge on honey. In this state, they are quite docile, since defense from predation is less important than saving as much food as possible.