How do bees make honey?

1. A worker bee lands on a flower and sips nectar, a sweet, watery juice, through her long tongue. She may visit around a hundred flowers on one trip.
2. The nectar goes into her honey stomach, a special bag just for carrying nectar. Inside it, the bee adds enzymes that start changing the sugar.
3. Back at the hive, she passes the nectar mouth to mouth to a house bee. House bees add more enzymes and spread the nectar into wax cells.
4. Now the nectar is still very runny. Many bees fan their wings to blow warm air over the cells. Water evaporates, and the nectar gets thicker and thicker.
5. When the honey is thick enough, bees make wax from tiny glands on their bellies. They chew it and build a lid over each cell to keep the honey clean and dry.
6. Bees make honey as food for winter, when there are no flowers. They huddle in a ball to keep warm and eat their stored honey.

Tap each part. We cut the bee open (in a drawing!) so you can see her honey stomach.

• Tongue (proboscis). The bee's long tongue, called a proboscis, reaches deep into flowers to lap up nectar. It folds away when she flies.
• Antennae. Bees smell and touch with their antennae. They can sniff out flowers, and the smells of their own hive.
• Wings. A bee has four wings that hook together. They beat about 200 times every second, which makes the buzzing sound. Bees also use them to fan the honey dry.
• Honey stomach. The honey stomach is a stretchy bag that carries nectar home. A valve keeps the nectar separate from the food the bee digests.
• Pollen basket. Bees comb pollen from their hairy bodies into baskets on their back legs. Pollen is food for baby bees.
• Wax glands. Young worker bees make little flakes of wax from glands under their bellies. They chew the wax to build honeycomb and lids.
• Honeycomb cells. Honeycomb is made of six-sided cells. The six-sided shape fits together with no gaps and uses very little wax.
• Wax cap. When the honey is ready, bees seal the cell with a wax cap. The cap keeps the honey clean and stops it soaking up water from the air.

Collect nectar, then change how hard the bees fan. Watch the water leave and the nectar thicken. Cap the cells when the honey is ready.

Experiment: What happens to the water in the nectar when more bees fan their wings?

1. Send the bee for nectar so a cell is full.
2. Stop the fanning and watch the water gauge.
3. Then fan as fast as you can. Compare the two.

What we found: With no fanning the nectar stays runny. Fanning blows air over the cells, so water evaporates much faster and the nectar turns into thick honey.

Turn on JavaScript to try it yourself.

Split your bees between collecting and fanning. Fill and cap all six cells before winter comes.

Honey starts as nectar, a sweet, watery juice that flowers make to attract insects. A worker bee sips it with her long tongue and stores it in her honey stomach. While she flies from flower to flower, pollen sticks to her fuzzy body, so she helps the flowers make seeds too.

Back at the hive, the forager passes the nectar to house bees. They add enzymes, which are special helpers that change the sugar, and spread the nectar into the wax cells of the honeycomb.

Nectar is mostly water, so it would spoil if the bees left it like that. Many bees stand on the comb and fan their wings to blow warm air through the hive. Day by day the water evaporates and the nectar becomes thick, sticky honey.

When the honey is ready, bees seal each cell with a lid of wax that they make from glands on their bellies. Honey is the colony's food for winter. A single worker makes only about one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in her whole life, so every jar is the work of thousands of bees.

Key words

Nectar

A sweet, watery juice made by flowers.

Enzyme

A special helper that speeds up a change, like changing one sugar into others.

Evaporation

When liquid water turns into water vapor and escapes into the air.

Honey stomach

A bag inside a bee for carrying nectar home.

Hygroscopic

Able to soak up water from the air, like honey does.

Check your thinking

1. What do bees collect from flowers to make honey?

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   Nectar. Bees sip nectar from flowers and carry it home in their honey stomachs.

2. Why do bees fan their wings over the honeycomb?

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   To make water evaporate from the nectar. Moving air carries water vapor away, so the nectar gets thicker.

3. Why do bees put wax lids on the cells?

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   To keep the honey clean and dry. The cap stops the honey getting dirty or soaking up water from damp air.

4. Why are honeycomb cells six-sided?

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   They fit together with no gaps and use little wax. Hexagons fit together perfectly and save precious wax.

5. Why is honey so important to the bees themselves?

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   It is their food for winter. When there are no flowers in winter, bees live on their stored honey.