Bees and honey

When you have toast with honey for breakfast, there are thousands of bee trips from flower to flower behind it. Bees are small, but they do a huge job: they make honey and, above all, they help plants produce fruit. How do they do it?

A very organized family

Honey bees live in hives that can hold tens of thousands of bees. There is a queen, who lays the eggs; the workers, who are female and do almost everything: finding food, looking after the young, cleaning and defending the hive; and the drones, who are male. Each worker changes jobs as she grows older.

From nectar to honey

Workers that go out to find food visit flowers and sip their nectar, a sweet liquid, with a long little tongue. They keep it in a special pouch. Back at the hive they pass it to other bees, who chew it and add substances that transform it. Then it is spread into wax cells and the bees fan their wings so the water evaporates. When it is thick, they seal the cell with wax: it is honey now, a food reserve for winter.

The bee dance

When a bee finds a good patch of flowers, she returns to the hive and dances. Her dance tells the others which direction it is in and how far away, using the Sun as a reference. It is a way of communicating without words.

Bees help plants

While collecting nectar, pollen sticks to the bees bodies. When they visit another flower, some of that pollen is left there. This transfer is called pollination and it lets flowers turn into fruit and seeds. Many fruits and vegetables we eat depend on bees and other pollinating insects.

Why we should look after them

In many places there are fewer bees because of some pesticides, the loss of wild flowers and climate change. We can help by planting flowers on balconies and in gardens and by buying honey from local producers. And remember: bees only sting when they feel threatened, so the best thing is to watch them calmly without bothering them.

A fun fact

To make one kilo of honey, bees visit millions of flowers, and a worker bee makes less than a teaspoon in her whole life.

💡 One bee makes less than a teaspoon of honey in her whole life.