Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff Works dot com where smart Happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question, how do honey bees make honey? A honey bee starts the honeymaking process by visiting a flower and gathering some of its nectar. Many plants use nectar as a way of attracting insects like bees, wasps, and butterflies to stop at the flower. In the process of gathering the nectar, the insect transfers pollen grains from one flower to another
and pollinates the flower. Most flower nectars are similar to sugar water sucros mixed with a lot of water. Nectars can contain other beneficial substances as well. To make honey, two things have to happen. First, enzymes that the bees produced turn the sucros, which is a die sac ride, into glucose, which is a monos sac ride. Second, most of the moisture has to be evaporated out of the nectar, leaving only about eighteen percent water in honey. The enzyme
is called invertase. It breaks sucrose, which is generally made of two glucose molecules apart, into their separate glucose molecules. Another enzymes that the bees produce is able to convert some of the glucose into gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide, both of which act as preservatives. Bees evaporate the water out of the honey by putting small drops of it on the comb and fanning it with their wings. The
effect is to make honey a very stable food. It naturally resists mold, fungi, and other bacteria, allowing it to last for years without refrigeration. For more on this and thousands of other topics. Because it how stuff works, dot com