📚 Study helper: This page helps you learn and practice for school. Read it, listen to it, and try to say the steps in order!
Honeybees make honey.
They make honey from nectar.
Nectar is a sweet juice inside flowers.
Bees make honey to feed themselves.
They save honey for cold months.
Here is how they do it, step by step.
Pick your grade:
Elementary: How Bees Make Honey
Count the steps with me. One, two, three, four, five, six!
Step 1. Find a flower
A bee finds a flower. The bee sips nectar from the flower with its long tongue.
Step 2. Carry the nectar
The bee stores the nectar in its honey stomach. Then the bee flies back to the hive.
Step 3. Pass the nectar
Back at the hive, the bee passes the nectar to other bees. The bees pass it from bee to bee. As they pass it, the nectar starts to turn into honey.
Step 4. Fill the honeycomb
The bees put the honey into honeycomb cells. The cells are made of wax.
Step 5. Fan the honey
The bees flap their wings over the honey. Fanning makes the honey thicker. It gets more like syrup and less like sweet juice.
Step 6. Seal the cell
When the honey is ready, the bees seal the cell. They close it with a wax lid. Now the honey is saved for later.
Why do bees make honey?
Bees eat the honey they made.
They eat it in cold months, when there are not as many flowers.
Babies younger than one year old should not eat honey.
Middle School: How Bees Make Honey, With More Detail
Only the honeybee makes the kind of honey we eat.
Honeybees live together in big groups called colonies.
Bumblebees are different. Bumblebees do not make and store large quantities of honey like honeybees.
Step 1. Collecting nectar
Foraging bees siphon nectar out of flowers with their proboscis, which is their tongue.
Step 2. The honey stomach
The bee stores the nectar in its crop. The crop is also called the honey stomach.
Step 3. Passing it on
When the bee returns to the hive, it feeds the nectar to hive bees. The bees pass the nectar through their mouths, from bee to bee.
Step 4. Enzymes go to work
The hive bees process the nectar with enzymes. As the nectar is passed from bee to bee, it is turned into honey. The hive bees regurgitate it into empty waxen cells as honey.
Step 5. Fanning out the water
Nectar is more than 70 percent water. Hive bees fan the developing honey to encourage water evaporation. Fanning makes the honey thicker and more like syrup instead of sweet juice.
Step 6. Capping the cell
The bees store the honey in honeycomb cells made of wax. Once the honey is ready, the bees seal the cell using a wax lid to store it for later. The United States Department of Agriculture says that when bees have filled the combs with honey and covered them with wax caps, a beekeeper can take the combs away to extract the honey.
Why store so much honey?
Bees make honey to feed themselves when little or no nectar is available, such as in winter.
In temperate zones, honeybees remain in the hive unless it is 54 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer. While in the hive, they consume the honey they made over the summer.
Honeybees also help plants. NASA says honeybees pollinate over 130 crops in the United States each year. The United States Department of Agriculture says honeybees pollinate more than 130 types of fruits, nuts, and vegetables.
Honey is not recommended for children younger than one year old. The United States Department of Agriculture says this is because of the natural presence of botulinum endospores. The digestive systems of older children and adults are able to destroy the spores more easily.
Words to Know
Nectar: Nectar is a sweet, sugary juice found in flowers. Bees collect it to make honey.
Proboscis: A proboscis is the bee's tongue. Bees use it to siphon nectar out of flowers.
Honey stomach: The honey stomach is also called the crop. It is the place where a bee stores nectar on the trip back to the hive.
Enzymes: Hive bees process nectar with enzymes. This helps turn the nectar into honey.
Honeycomb: A honeycomb is made of wax cells. Bees store honey in the cells.
Colony: A colony is the big group of honeybees that live together.
📚 Study helper: Great job! Now try this. Cover the steps. Can you say all six steps in order? Then check your answer.
Sources
Smithsonian Magazine — Ask Smithsonian: What Is Lightning? How Do Bees Make Honey? How Do Cats Purr?: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ask-smithsonian-what-is-lightning-how-do-bees-make-honey-how-do-cats-purr-170281746/
USDA — USDA Science Lab Buzzing With “Sweet” Results: https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/blog/usda-science-lab-buzzing-sweet-results
USDA Forest Service — Bumblebees: https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/bumblebees.shtml
NASA Science — Our World: Honeybees: https://science.nasa.gov/eclips/videos/our-world-honeybees/
Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute — 7 Things You Should Know about Bees and Other Pollinators: https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/news/7-things-you-should-know-about-bees-and-other-pollinators