Would you have thought that bees produce more than just honey? In fact, they create four main substances: honey, beeswax, royal jelly, and propolis.
You may recognize the names, but do you know how each of these products is made?
Let’s start with honey, a well-known food today, famously produced by bees. One of its main ingredients is nectar, a sweet, watery liquid secreted by flowers. Bees collect nectar with their mouths and bring it back to the hive. Another key ingredient is pollen, which sticks to the bees’ legs and body hairs while they move from flower to flower. They carry it in a special “basket” on their hind legs into the hive. There, they mix the ingredients and fan them with their wings until the moisture content is reduced and the honey reaches the right consistency.
Beeswax is produced from glands in the bees’ bodies and used to build the structure of the hive, such as the walls of the honeycombs. It is a waxy substance with a low melting point and has antibacterial properties, helping protect the hive from disease.
Royal jelly, sometimes called queen’s gel, is a secretion produced by worker bees. It is used to feed the queen bee throughout her life and is essential to her larger size, egg-laying capacity, and long lifespan. Young larvae are also fed this protein-rich substance during their early development.
Last but not least, there’s propolis. Its beneficial properties are becoming increasingly well known, and it’s now widely consumed. But where does it come from? Bees make propolis from plant resins, nectar, waxes, and other substances, which they collect and bring back to the hive. There, they mix it with their secretions to form the final product. Propolis has natural antimicrobial properties that help defend the hive from infections and maintain a balanced internal environment.
Now we can truly see how complex the workings of a bee colony are and how much effort they put into maintaining the hive every day—work that is essential to their survival.
