How is pollen converted into honey

A.� It isn’t, although bees collect both pollen and nectar from flowers, only nectar is used in the honey making process.

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Q.� How is the nectar taken back to the hive

A.� Pollen becomes stuck to the bees’ legs, but the nectar is ingested in the bee’s honey stomach, which, becomes visibly much larger when full.

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Q.� What is nectar made of

A.� Mainly sugar and water.

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Q.� What happens to the nectar back at the hive

A.� It is stored in honeycomb cells where most of the water evaporates, leaving behind nectars other component: sugar, which is harvested as honey.

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Q.� Does the water evaporate naturally

A.� When the hive is on full honey processing mode the bees speed things up a bit by beating their wings.

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Q.� How does the honey stay fresh in the hive

A.� As the water evaporates the sugar, or sucrose, breaks down into two different sugar types: fructose and glucose. These sugars are too concentrated to allow micro-organisms such as yeast to grow and rot the honey.

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Q.� What gives different honeys’, such as orange blossom honey, its flavour

A.� Nectar also contains flavour and colour enhancing chemicals. Bees have bouts when they only collect nectar form one type of flower , honey harvested after such sessions are characteristic of that flower’s colour and fragrance.

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by Lisa Cardy