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After you read the information on this page, you can also
click on the pictures
below
for additional information on honey bees and varroa mites. The
picture on the left will take you to a page with more honey
bee information, the middle picture will take you to a page about varroa mites
and the bee hive (skep) picture on the right will take to a honey bee quiz!
Click all 3 pictures below for various information and be sure to click the skep
to test your honey bee knowledge.
Bees at a Hive
A Varroa Mite on Bee Larva
Bee Quiz
Honey bees are the only insects that produce a
food consumed by humans. Honey is produced in one of the busiest yet most
efficient factories in the world — a beehive.
Honey bees are social insects with a marked division of
labor among the various bees in the hive. A colony contains one queen, 500 to
1,000 drones and about 30,000 to 60,000 workers.
The matriarch of the colony is the queen.
Nurtured on a special diet of royal
jelly, the queen is the only sexually developed female in the hive. A few
days after hatching, the queen mates with drones in flight. The drones,
which are stout male bees that lack stingers, fulfill their single purpose in
the colony by mating with the queen.
During this “mating flight,” the queen receives millions of sperm cells that
last her entire life — often two years or more. A productive queen will lay up
to 3,000 eggs in a single day.
The sexually undeveloped female bees
perform the work of the colony. Once hatched, these worker bees do a sequence of
jobs – cleaning the nursery, caring for and feeding the larvae, collecting
nectar, making wax comb, guarding the hive and fanning their wings to keep the
hive cool.
Click Picture for More Bee Facts
A Queen Bee Surrounded by Her Workers
To make a pound of honey, worker bees must
forage nectar from millions of flowers. To communicate the location of nectar
sources, bees perform several different and distinct dances.
Honey
Production:
In the fall, beekeepers prepare their hives for winter, ensuring that each hive
has adequate honey “left on” (not extracted) to feed the colony. Many
beekeepers also move their hives to warmer states during the winter. About one
half of all commercial beekeepers are migratory beekeepers. Some rent their bees
to farmers, moving their hives to pollinate various crops. Others relocate
their hives near blossoms for honey production.
Extracting the Sweet Liquid:
Fortunately, honey bees normally make more honey than the colony needs.
On average, a colony will produce about 80 pounds of surplus honey each
year. To harvest the honey, beekeepers remove the honeycomb frames from
each hive. The wax cappings covering the honeycomb are scraped off to expose
the liquid honey.
Using a honey extractor (typically a centrifuge-type apparatus), the
honey is spun out of the comb. The honey then passes through a filter and
drains into a storage tank. The honey is often placed in 55-gallon drums and
transported to a honey packer. Or, the beekeeper may bottle the honey for
local sale.
Honey Composition:
Honey is a source of carbohydrates — mainly fructose (about 38.5
percent) and glucose (about 31.0 percent). The remaining carbohydrates
include maltose, sucrose and other complex carbohydrates. On average, honey
is 17.1 percent water.
In addition, honey contains a wide array of vitamins, such as vitamin
B6, thiamin, niacin, riboflavin and pantothenic acid. Essential minerals
including calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus,
potassium, sodium and zinc as well as several different amino acids have
been identified in honey. (Some of these compounds exist in quantities less
than 10 percent of the recommended daily requirement.)
Honey also contains
several compounds which function as antioxidants (see
honey facts) —
compounds that may help delay the oxidative damage to cells or tissues in
our bodies. Known antioxidant compounds in honey are chrysin, pinobanksin,
vitamin C, catalase and pinocembrin.
Research has shown that
unlike most other sweeteners,
honey contains small amounts of a
wide array of vitamins, minerals, amino acids and antioxidants.
Here are some
pictures of bees in action:
Bees on a
brood comb
Worker bees
tending young larvae
Drone (Male)
Bees Worker Bee Emerging
 
Nectar
New Queen Emerging
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