We all enjoy the delicious honey that our fantastic buzzing friends make. However, it takes the honey bees a lot of hard work, dedication, time, and constant teamwork to make this sweet product. Apart from man, it is believed that nothing in the world can compare to the incredible efficiency of the honeybee industry. 

Throughout the warm season, these creatures go through a cycle of raising a colony, collecting nectar, and creating honey in the hive. If something gets amiss along the way, the process is interrupted; and they cannot get the end product.

Approximately how many flowers must bees visit to produce one pound of honey?

Bees must visit around 2 million flowers to produce one pound of honey( 454gms). In a day, a forger can visit up to 1500 flowers. They tend to visit one type of flower in a single trip which aids significantly in crop pollination. 

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Understanding the Honey Bee Colony

A honey bee colony comprises a queen, drones (about 300) and thousands of worker bees9 foragers). If any caste is removed, a colony cannot survive. The queen is the foundation and the source of an entire colony. Her work is to lay eggs to build and maintain the bee population. 

 The work of the drone is to mate with the queen. The worker performs all the tasks in the nest, including gathering nectar and pollen. The queen can live up to three years, while the other females and drones live for a few weeks. Drones may die sooner since they usually die after mating with the queen. 

When it comes to honey production, a colony depends on the worker bees. The younger worker bees perform the house tasks while the older ones go foraging errands. Foragers live for 6-7 weeks in the busy months but can live more in winter. 

How long can bee travel in search of nectar?

Worker bees begin to take foraging trips about three weeks after emerging from their cocoons as adults. They can travel up to 3 miles from their nest and spend up to 3 hours per trip. In a single trip, she can visit up to 100 flowers and may make up to 15 trips in a day. This depends on food availability, weather, and physical barriers. If a nectar source is close to the hive, she will make more trips. 

Amount of Honey the Bees Produce in a Year

A single colony produces between 60 to 100 pounds of honey per year. Depending on the length of winter, a colony needs 40-60 pounds of honey to survive. 

Process of Making Honey

Honey bees transform nectar into honey through a long process.

Nectar Collection

Forager bees collect honey from different flowers with their long, tube-shaped tongue(proboscis) and store it in the nectar stomach(crop). This is different from the digestive stomach. It can hold about 70mg of nectar. 

If she is hungry, she opens a valve in the nectar sac, and some nectar passes through her digestive stomach. It is then converted to energy to satisfy her immediate need. When her nectar sacs are fully loaded, she returns to the hive to deliver the load. 

Passing the Nectar to House Bees

On returning to the hive, she regurgitates the nectar into the mouth of the house bees. As it is passed from one bee to the other, it is mixed with enzymes from the bee’s saliva and digestive system. These include amylase, invertase, and diastase. The enzymes help to break down sugars into a more digestible form and protect the honey from bacteria during storage. The process takes around 30 minutes.

Dehydrating the Honey 

The bees then deposit the honey into a honeycomb cell. At this stage, the water content is high and needs to be reduced to about 18%. They spread it well on the combs to increase the surface area for evaporation and fan their wings at a rate of 11,000 in a minute to increase the airflow. This process aids in removing moisture from partially filled uncapped cells.

Capping with Beeswax 

Once it attains the right moisture content, the bees cap it with wax to seal it. The honey stays in the honeycomb cells until they are ready to use it. 

There are more than 300 varieties of honey. Their taste, smell, and flavour depend on the floral source. 

How Bees Utilize the Honey They produce

Honey is an essential carbohydrate source for the bee colony, especially for the workers who use a lot of energy. The bees also keep a reserve to provide the energy that a colony needs to survive winter. The bees can easily perish if the reserves get depleted before winter is over. Honey is also mixed with pollen to make bee bread to feed the young brood. 

How fast does a bee fly?

Honey bees are fast fliers. They flap their wings 200 times in a one-second and fly at a speed of 20 Mph in good weather without any load. When loaded with nectar and pollen, their rate drops to 12 Mph. Their wings are driven by flight muscles. 

Which Species of Bees Produce Honey

Only the Apidae family of bees makes honey. The family is vast and contains many species that produce honey, like trigona bees, stingless bees, Apis cerana, and bumblebees. All honey maker species live in colonies comprising a queen, drones, and many workers. They are defensive and can be harmful to untrained individuals. 

FAQs

When is the best time to harvest honey from the hive?

You can start harvesting honey from your hive when one or more frames in the honey super are entirely capped. Uncapped honey is not well dehydrated and tends to ferment. 

What amount of honey does a bee colony produce in a year?

A bee colony makes 60-100 pounds of honey in a year. 

What is the amount of honey that a bee makes in a lifetime?

A honey bee lives for 6-7 weeks. During this time, she only manages to make one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey. 

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Can you keep bees without harvesting honey?

Yes, you can keep a bee colony and fail to harvest honey. However, this can affect the colony negatively. The bees will not have enough room to store surplus honey which can also cause overpopulation leading to swarming. 

In which month or season do bees produce most honey?

Bees produce most honey in summer. 

How long does it take for nectar to become honey?

Producing capped honey takes a few days, especially during a heavy nectar flow.

You can learn more about the ” How to Start Natural Beekeeping? Step By Step Guide ” in our article.