Like humans, bees need a balanced diet to stay healthy. Honeybees require carbohydrates (sugars, in the form of flower nectar or honey) and protein (in the form of pollen), in addition to vitamins, minerals and water. All of these vital ingredients are available to them from flowering plants. A beehive containing an average of 50,000 bees will consume about 700 pounds of nectar, and more than 50 pounds of pollen per year!
A foraging honeybee uses her proboscis like a straw to suck nectar up from flowers. The nectar is stored in a special “sack” (part of her abdomen but separate from her stomach) for transportation back to the hive. While inside her body, foragers add enzymes to the nectar. These enzymes convert the simple sucrose of the nectar into glucose and fructose. The enzymes are also responsible for making honey acidic, and for the conversion of a small amount of the glucose into hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide kills germs, and makes honey hostile to bacteria growth. (This is also why honey is so good for sore throats.)
Pollen is collected by pollen foragers (bees which specialize in pollen collection) or by nectar foragers, which inadvertently become dusted by pollen while collecting nectar. Pollen gets brushed from the w
orker’s body by her front and middle legs, and tucked into a special structure in her hind legs called the cubicula, or pollen basket. Once the bees bring the pollen back to the hive, it gets pounded to a paste-like consistency into a wax cell by other worker bees. Interestingly, when the pollen is turned into paste, worker bees add secretions to it which cause the pollen to undergo lactic fermentation. Three bacteria contribute to this fermentation, including Lactobacillus, which is the same probiotic bacteria found in yogurt. Bees create a complex concert of nutrition, including living enzymes and probiotics, which contribute to the over-all health of the hive.
This veritable symphony of food, based solely on flowers, is extremely delicate. Beekeepers and entymologists are just now discovering how to maintain the optimal nutrition of the hive. In a word, it requires diversity. Bees need a wide array of flowers to forage on, as each contributes unique and important nutrients- no flower type is the same as another. We know that bees’ health declines when they are placed in mono-culture crops (as when they are used for the commercial pollination of almonds).
In addition, many of these mono-culture crops are sprayed with fungicides, as well as pesticides. It seems clear that pesticides would affect bees: if orchard-owners spray their crops for insects, and a bee is an insect… Yet fungicides also seem to play an as yet unappreciated role in the decline of honeybee health: Fungicides attack the delicate probiotic bacteria found in the pollen stored by bees in the hive. Could it be that bees, just like humans, need “good” bacteria in their guts to keep them healthy and ward off diseases?
A major part of keeping honeybees healthy is giving them a place to forage where they can find lots of different flowers they like, that are not sprayed with fungicides or pesticides. The honey they make, which we eat, is also much more natural.
Just another reason why buying certified organic honey is so important.
