Products of the Hive
What Are “Products of the Hive?
Information compiled from a combination of beekeeper knowledge and The British Beekeepers Assoc.
Photos as credited
When you think of honeybees and products of the hive, more people think of liquid honey and comb honey. Unless you are a beekeeper, for most, not much else comes to mind. However, the phrase “busy as bees” didn’t come about for no reason. They are very hard little workers and produce several products of the hive. Today we will go over these products.
1. Honey
Honey is a very sweet, thick, and sticky liquid made by several species of bees; the best known of which are the honeybees. It is made by to bees as a food and nourishment for the colony. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primarily floral nectar). This refinement takes place both within individual bees, through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, and during storage in the hive, through water evaporation that concentrates the honey’s sugars until it is thick and viscous.
Honeybees stockpile honey in the hive. Within the hive is a structure made from wax called honeycomb. The honeycomb consists of hundreds or thousands of hexagonal cells, into which the bees regurgitate honey for storage. By controlling the temperature. Humidity, and airflow within the hive with their bodies, and/or wings, the honey’s water content is substantially reduced. When it is of the right consistency, the bees cap the honey with beeswax for later consumption.
2. Beeswax
Beeswax itself if another “product of the hive.” Made from the honeycomb of the honeybee, beeswax is the purest and most natural of all waxes. For each pound of beeswax provided by a honey bee, the bee visits over 30 million flowers. To produce one pound of wax requires the bees to consume about eight to ten pounds of honey. They secrete the beeswax from the underside of their abdomens, and then use the wax to construct a honeycomb.
The youngest bees cluster in large numbers to raise their body temperature. Wax-producing glands under their abdomens slowly secrete slivers of wax about the size of a pinhead. Other worker bees harvest these wax scales and take them to the part of the hive requiring the new wax. Bees use about 6 lb of honey to produce 1 lb of wax.
3. Bee bread
Edible grade pollen or ‘bee bread’ is a mixture of plant pollen and honey, which bees mold into granules and store in their honeycombs. Plant pollen can make you sneeze and have a runny nose and eyes if you are allergic to it, but people eat bee bread to help try and stop this.
Many Olympic athletes eat bee bread in a bid to strengthen their immune system, increase oxygen intake, boost performance, and help them recover quicker after training.
4. Propolis
Propolis or bee glue is a resinous mixture that honeybees produce by mixing saliva and beeswax with exudate gathered from tree buds, sap flows, or other botanical sources. It is used as a sealant for unwanted open spaces in the hive. Propolis is used for small gaps, while larger spaces are usually filled with beeswax. Its color varies depending on its botanical source, the most common being dark brown. Propolis is sticky at, and above, room temperature. At lower temperatures, it becomes hard and very brittle.
Propolis also has great medicinal qualities and can be added to alcohol to make tinctures to treat various ailments.
5. Pollen
Pollen isn’t “made in the hive,” so to speak, it is made by various plants. Bees just pack it in their pollen baskets and bring it back to the hive for storage an to use it for the production of honey and other things. However, pollen has a lot of value but is very hard for people to gather. Bees gather it with ease and we have to create a pollen trap that take some of their pollen as the bee enters the hive. Then the beekeeper removes the pollen trap and stores or packages the pollen for sale or to be used in other products.
6. Royal Jelly
Royal jelly is the food fed to queen bee larvae. It is a creamy white color and very rich in proteins and fatty acids. It is produced by the mouth glands in young bees. Each queen needs only a teaspoon of royal jelly to thrive.
The photo shows a nurse bee packing royal jelly into a cell in the comb containing developing larvae (baby bee). Because of this special “Royal Jelly,” these particular larvae will become queen bee.
7. Mead
Though in itself not an actual product directly of the hive. It has to be made by humans with products of the hive and more and then left to ferment. Before people discovered how to brew beer and make wine, they fermented honey with water and yeast to make the first alcoholic drink – mead. Some people call it the ‘Nectar of the Gods’. Others think it tasted like a cough mixture, which may have to do with the honey’s healing properties.