Why do bees make honey?
Honey bees are special in that they overwinter as a colony, unlike wasps and bumblebees. The colony does not hibernate but stays active and clusters together to stay warm. This requires a lot of food, which is stored during the summer. Although a hive only needs 20 – 30 lb of honey to survive an average winter, the bees are capable of collecting much more, if given storage space.
In a good year, honey bees will make far more honey that they need for themselves. Beekeepers usually harvest the surplus honey at the end of the summer but always leave enough in the hive for the bees to eat over the long winter months.
How do bees make honey?
Bees take nectar, which is a sweet sticky substance exuded by most flowers and some insects (honeydew), and mix it with enzymes from glands in their mouths. This nectar/enzyme mix is stored in hexagonal wax honey comb until the water content has been reduced to around 17%. When this level is …