Page 163 - The Miracle of the Honeybee

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B y making honey, bees have served humanity since very ancient

times. Beekeeping goes as far back as 3500 BCE.
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The Production of Honey

As you know, the main ingredient in honey is the nectar collected by
bees from flowers and fruit buds. Bees turn this into honey. Pollen has no
effect on the production of honey, and is used by bees only to meet their
needs for protein.
The nectar a bee collects from flowers and swallows undergoes a chem-
ical change in its honey stomach, where it becomes a heavy, sugary liquid
rich in vitamins and minerals. Later, bees place it into the honeycomb cells
and seal with a wax cover. The honey acquires its familiar taste and con-
sistency in the comb, thanks to the special air-conditioning provided by
the bees. 142
The color of honey, its sugar content and different flavors all stem from
the original nectars collected. The aromatic volatile oils in flowers, those
same oils that give flowers their scents, give the honey its aroma.
Honey production requires a major effort. For example, it takes 900
bees working an entire day to collect half a kilogram of raw nectar, only
part of which can be turned into honey. The amount of honey obtained
from the flowers totally depends upon the sugar concentration of the nec-
tar brought to the hive. In the apple blossom, for instance, there is little
sugar, and so little of the nectar collected from apple trees can be turned

into honey. 143
In order to obtain 450 grams of pure honey, some 17,000 bees must visit
10 million flowers. An average expedition to find food requires that a bee
visit some 500 flowers and on a journey lasting approximately 25 minutes.
That explains why bees have to put in 7,000 work hours to obtain 450
grams of pure honey. 144
Although this job is most demanding, bees create many times more

Adnan Oktar