How Do Bees Make Honey? Nectar to Sealed Comb

Bees make honey by swallowing nectar, adding enzymes from their own glands on the way home, drying it down in the comb and sealing the finished cell with wax. They do it to eat: honey is nectar that a colony has concentrated, chemically altered and sealed away as a food store for the months when there are no flowers to work — and every step of the process, from the enzymes to the fanning to the wax cap, exists to turn a thin, perishable sugar solution into something that will keep in a warm hive. This guide follows one load of nectar from the flower to the sealed cell.

Honey is nectar gathered by bees, transformed by enzymes from their own glands, dried down in the comb until most of its water has gone, and capped with wax.

Plate I · IllustrationRecord

Why do bees make honey?

Because a colony has to eat when nothing is flowering. A honey bee colony runs to between 20,000 and 80,000 sterile female workers, with 50,000 a more common maximum, and all of them need feeding every day of the year. Nectar does not arrive every day of the year: as a season turns, the FAO’s account of colony life puts it plainly — nectar sources diminish and later stop completely, and the reserve in the comb is what stands between the colony and that gap.

Nectar as gathered will not keep: it is mostly water, and water is what lets a sugar solution ferment. So the colony converts it, and stores that instead.

What is nectar, and why do bees gather it?

Nectar is the sugar solution flowering plants secrete to draw pollinators in. Its strength varies by plant, by weather and by hour, but it is dilute compared with what ends up in the comb: in the aloe-nectar field study described below, the nectar the bees were working stood at around 20% sugar by weight, while matured honey usually carries over 80% sugar.

That gap is the whole task. Most of what a colony does to nectar is take water out of it — the chemistry happens alongside, but by mass, honey-making is drying.

What happens in the honey stomach on the way home?

The forager sucks nectar into her honey stomach — a crop, a storage sac sitting ahead of her own digestive gut, from which she can bring the load back up again. A fully loaded bee can carry 85% of her own weight.

The load does not simply sit there. Working aloe nectar in South Africa, Nicolson and Human caught bees on the flowers and again on their return, and found the crop contents of returning foragers significantly more concentrated than the nectar they had drunk: about 20% sugar by weight at the flower against 38–40% coming home. At one site, 14.8 mg of water had been lost from the load before the bee reached the hive. Their explanation is that the bee regurgitates the nectar onto her tongue and lets it evaporate as she works and flies. Their conclusion is the one worth carrying: processing of dilute nectar into honey begins early.

Fig. I · Nectar to sealed cellDiagram

One load of nectar, followed from the floret to the capped cell

1. Stage 1Into the honey stomach

   The forager sucks nectar into her honey stomach — a crop, a storage sac sitting ahead of her own digestive gut, from which she can bring the load back up again.

   Sugar by weight~20%at the flower

   The load85%of her own weight, fully loaded

2. Stage 2On the flight home

   The load does not simply sit there. Nicolson and Human’s explanation is that she regurgitates the nectar onto her tongue and lets it evaporate as she works and flies; what they measured is the concentration below. Their conclusion: processing of dilute nectar into honey begins early.

   Sugar by weight38–40%coming home

   Water gone14.8 mgfrom the load, at one site, before she reached the hive

3. Stage 3Mouth to mouth

   She rarely puts nectar into a cell herself. She hands it to a house bee, which exposes it to the air the fanning bees are moving; the droplet may be passed on again, spread thin on a cell wall, taken up and passed once more. Each hand-off re-exposes the liquid to dry hive air and mixes in another dose of enzyme.

   Added by the beeInvertase — sucrose, the sugar the plant supplied, into fructose and glucose.Glucose oxidase — some of that glucose into gluconic acid, which lowers honey’s pH.

   Sugar by weightNo figure on this page for the hand-off

4. Stage 4Fanned dry in the comb

   House bees dehydrate honey through hive ventilation — wing beats create a constant airflow, and the fanning bees are, in effect, the ventilation system.

   Ripening~2 hoursfor a concentrated nectar; a dilute one takes considerably longer

5. Stage 5Sealed with a wax capping

   The finished cells are sealed with wax cappings — the white sheet across a full comb that every beekeeper reads before taking a frame.

   Matured honeyusuallyover 80%sugar, so under 20% water

   Sold in England20% waterthe ceiling in Schedule 1 — 23% for heather (Calluna) honey and for baker’s honey, 25% for baker’s honey from heather

Sugar by weight, per cent — every figure this page gives

2038–40800100

~20% — at the flower38–40% — coming homeusually over 80% — matured honey; the page gives no exact pointdashed — no figure on this page

Most of what a colony does to nectar is take water out of it — the chemistry happens alongside, but by mass, honey-making is drying.

Which enzymes do bees add to nectar?

Two do most of the visible work, and both come from the bee, not the flower.

Invertase converts sucrose — the sugar the plant supplied — into fructose and glucose, the pair that dominates finished honey. Its activity climbs as the honey ripens, from low values in immature honey to a maximum in mature honey.

Glucose oxidase works on some of that glucose, oxidising it to gluconic acid. The gluconic acid is what lowers honey’s pH; honey is an acidic food, and this enzyme is the reason.

How does the nectar get passed mouth to mouth?

The returning forager rarely puts nectar into a cell herself. She hands it to a house bee, which exposes the nectar to the air being moved by the fanning bees — and that air circulation reduces the moisture content and drives the sugar concentration up. The droplet may be passed on again, spread thin on a cell wall, taken up and passed once more.

Each hand-off does two things at once: it re-exposes the liquid to dry hive air, and it mixes in another dose of enzyme. Mouth-to-mouth transfer is not sentimentality; it is how a colony gets a very large surface area onto a very small volume of liquid.

How do bees dry honey out?

By moving air across it. House bees dehydrate honey through hive ventilation — wing beats create a constant airflow, and the fanning bees are, in effect, the ventilation system. How long that takes depends on what came in: a concentrated nectar can be ripened in about two hours, while a dilute one takes considerably longer.

The finishing point is a moisture figure, and the bees’ own target and UK law land in almost the same place. Matured honey usually holds over 80% sugar, so under 20% water. Schedule 1 to the Honey (England) Regulations 2015 sets the ceiling for honey sold in England at not more than 20% water, 23% for heather (Calluna) honey and for baker’s honey, and 25% for baker’s honey from heather. For table honey the figure that matters is 23% for heather honey. A bee finishing a cell and a laboratory checking a jar are looking at the same number from opposite ends.

When do bees cap the cells with wax?

When the honey in them is dry enough to keep. The bees seal the finished cells with wax cappings, and that white sheet across a full comb is the sign every beekeeper reads before taking a frame.

It is a sign rather than a certificate. Capping is one of the final morphological indicators of ripening, not proof of full chemical and microbiological stability — which is why moisture is still measured after extraction rather than assumed from the cap. Where that sealed cell is sold intact instead of extracted, it becomes comb honey, and the capping goes onto the plate with it.

How do bees make honeycomb?

Out of their own bodies. Eight wax glands on the underside of a young worker’s abdomen secrete small wax platelets, and the FAO’s account of colony life has those glands best developed and productive when she is 12 to 18 days old — before she graduates to foraging, and after her brood-feeding days. To produce wax the bees gorge on honey and hang suspended in festoons for hours together, while their digestive organs turn the contents of their honey sacs into energy and beeswax.

The platelets are then worked by mouth: scraped off, chewed into pliable pieces with saliva, attached to the comb and re-chewed several times before they become part of the structure. The result is absurdly efficient — the FAO’s wax chapter describes a 20 g comb structure supporting 1,000 g of honey. The same wax also makes the cappings, so the cell and its lid are the same material.

Fig. II · Eight wax glandsDiagram

A young worker, seen from below — where the comb comes from

8wax glands

On the underside of a young worker’s abdomen

They secrete small wax platelets. To produce wax the bees gorge on honey and hang suspended in festoons for hours together, while their digestive organs turn the contents of their honey sacs into energy and beeswax.

The FAO’s wax chapterA 20 g comb structure supporting1,000 g of honey. The same wax also makes the cappings, so the cell and its lid are the same material.

Her days, in order — the page gives a figure for one phase of the three

1. BeforeHer brood-feeding daysUndated on this page
2. The wax window12 – 18 days oldWax glands best developed and productive — the FAO’s account of colony life
3. AfterShe graduates to foragingUndated on this page

A wax platelet

Small, and secreted whole. No measurement is given for one on this page, so it is drawn without a scale.

A chewed piece of comb wall

Scraped off, chewed into pliable pieces with saliva, attached to the comb and re-chewed several times. Also drawn without a scale.

Do bees eat their own honey?

Yes. Honey is the colony’s food, not a product made for anyone else; what a beekeeper takes is the surplus above what the bees need for themselves. It is eaten as fuel, and it is eaten to make wax: the festooning bees described above are converting the contents of their honey sacs directly into energy and building material.

The popular version of the story sometimes implies that bees make honey and then, somehow, never touch it. They make it, they store it, they live on it.

Do bumblebees make honey?

Not in the way honey bees do. A bumblebee nest contains little wax pots used to store nectar, along with wax brood cells and a wax covering — the pots are a working larder measured in days, not a winter store measured in kilograms. A well-established nest may hold up to 400 bumblebees and be about the size of a small football, against the tens of thousands in a honey bee colony.

The reason is the calendar. A bumblebee colony does not overwinter: at the end of the nest the original queen reaches the end of her lifespan and dies, the workers gradually disperse and die off, and the new queens and males leave to mate and feed. Nothing has to be provisioned for a winter of confinement, so nothing on that scale is laid down.

Do wasps make honey?

The social wasps you meet in Britain do not. A common wasp nest is built of paper, formed by the queen chewing up wood — not of wax, and not into a store of sealed cells. The adults feed on high-energy food such as nectar, rotten fruit and sugary picnics, and the young back in the nest are fed on small insects.

That last line is the whole difference. A wasp colony feeds its brood on animal protein caught daily and builds a paper nursery that lasts one season; a honey bee colony feeds its brood on stored plant sugars and pollen and builds a wax warehouse it intends to survive on. Same order of insects, opposite economies.

One note on honey as food

Honey of any kind is not suitable for infants under 12 months. NHS advice is not to give honey to a child until they are over one year old, because honey can occasionally contain bacteria that produce toxins in a baby’s intestines, causing infant botulism, a very serious illness.

Where THYMELIA stands

THYMELIA is a UK house of Greek foods working two harvests — raw thyme honey from Chania in western Crete, and early-harvest olive oil from the hills above Kalamata. Everything above happens before a beekeeper opens a hive; what happens after — how warm the honey gets, how finely it is filtered, whether the pollen stays in — is the part a buyer can actually check, and it is the part we intend to publish. Some of what the house offers will be raw and evidenced batch by batch; not all of it will be, and the word will only appear where the figures support it. What “raw” has to mean is set out in what is raw honey.

There is no shop yet. How we source is at sourcing, and what we will test and publish per batch is at testing. The literature on bee products — what has been studied, and what it found — is at evidence.

For the category from the top, with every guide in it, start at raw honey.