Like us the bees also have colonies. No other class of wild species can match their organized way of life. The honey-bee colony consists of three main divisions: the workers, who provide food and protection for the colony; the queen who lays eggs, and the drones, who mate with the queen. An average honey beehive contains one queen, 100 drones and 60,000 workers. The workers are female bees while drones are male. The queen bee lays more than 2,000 eggs in a day, and about 250,000 eggs in a season, it lays more than 1,000,000 eggs in its lifetime. Most of the bees live for one to two years. One bee colony can have a grouping of up to 60,000 bees. The worker bees have many duties. In the beginning they clean and polish the hives. After some days, they look after the larvae of the bees. Eventually, they go out to collect the nectar from flowers. Do you know how these bees make honey?
In fact, honey is the food of these bees. As such, for the bees, making of honey is like gathering food for themselves. And this they collect from flowers. The flowers contain a sweet liquid called the nectar. The bees drink this nectar and carry it to the beehive in their honey sacs. A bee must visit about 1000 flowers to fill its honey sac. The honey sac is located near the belly of the bee. A valve separates it from the belly. The sugar present in the nectar undergoes a chemical reaction. The water present in the nectar evaporates. And after this evaporation the honey can remain in the hive for a very long time without getting spoiled. This honey is stored as the food for future.
There are many ways of extracting honey from the hive. The comb can be squeezed to yield honey. A machine is also available for removing honey from the combs. It is called the ‘honey extractor’. The colour and taste of various kinds of honey vary depending upon the flowers from which the nectar has been collected. Honey contains many substances which include two kinds of sugar-laevulose and dextrose, maltose, dextrins, minerals, enzymes, many vitamins, small amounts of proteins and acids. That is why honey is very useful for our health and fitness.