When we take the spoonful of golden honey, we just imagine the honey based on the scenes of the diligent honeybee filling up hives with this natural sweetener. The history of honey is however much more varied. Although the European honeybee (Apis mellifera) is by far the most prominent example of the species that produce honey in large-scale quantities, numerous other species of bees around the world have a distinct way of producing honey.

It is true that bees produce honey for their own survival, particularly to feed their developing brood and the entire hive during times of nectar scarcity. Nearly all social bees keep a lot of honey in their hive as a survival mechanism.

One of these unusual bee species that produces honey is Apis laboriosa, which safeguards and maintains the ecosystem at high elevations where the majority of common bees are hesitant to dwell. Mad honey, a curious moniker for the honey’s intoxicating qualities, is what they are famous for producing!

How Many Bees to Make Honey?

The average honeybee can only generate 1/12 th of a teaspoon of honey throughout her life. It means that 12 bees have to work all their lives to produce one teaspoon. A colony of bees requires tens of thousands of visits and flights to almost 2 million flowers to yield a full pound of honey.

An average hive has 20,000-60,000 bees and they can collectively yield 30-60 pounds of honey annually (more than they require to feed themselves). This collaboration explains why bees are regarded as some of the most productive animals on Earth.

Are All Bees Honey-Makers?

Most of the curious questions are “Do all bees make Honey?” but interestingly not every bee produces honey. Of all the Honeymakers found all over the world, in terms of 20,000, only a handful have been found to be bee species. We will see the chief between your jar:

• Apis mellifera (Western Honeybee): This species of honeybees is the most widely employed honeybee in beekeeping. They produce commercial honey and they are known to be the most adaptable, with large colonies.
• Apis cerana (Asian Honeybee): These bees are smaller and do not produce a lot of honey, but being better resistant to various diseases are more favorable in conditions of the region.
• Apis dorsata (Giant Honeybee): They occur in South and Southeast Asia and construct very large open honey hives and may produce quantities of honey in higher amounts, most of it that is usually of wild honey.
• Stingless Bees (Meliponini): Stingless bees are popular in tropical areas and they do not produce much honey but the one that is produced has a very tangy and medicinal taste. It is a very scarcely-but-prized health-giving food.

Some Unexpected Honey Makers

Other than Apis, bees also make honey. Despite being lesser in amounts, what these bees produce is equally valuable—it supports their colonies.

Meliponini group/ Stingless bees

These bees lack stingers; they are stingless. They are distinctive because they generate pot-honey, which is honey kept in pot-shaped formations instead of hexagonal combs. The tribe includes several remarkable species:

Melipona beecheii: Since ancient times indigenous Mayans have been using this very therapeutic honey to treat bodily injuries.

Trigona species: Trigona is one of the largest species of stingless bees. The specialty of this species of bees are that they are true guardian of their hives, thought of as incredibly furious when strangers attempt to disturb their hive.

Tetragonula carbonaria: These Australian creatures are known to produce honey with a distinctive tangy flavor.

Bumblebees

Bumblebees are native bees that gather nectar from wildflowers flourishing in the landscape abundant with wildflowers. The honey they generate in limited quantities is not intended for sale; the only objective for its production is to sustain the generational continuity.

Rare/ Expensive Honeys

Mad Honey – discovered at the highest altitudes, uncommon.

Elvish honey – the priciest, collected from hives deep within caves.

Pitcairn honey – the rarest honey.

Manuka honey – exceptional and uncommon.

The Science of Honey Production

Although there are various types of honey bees, their methods of honey production remain identical. A detailed process outline for honey production is presented here:

• Collector bees gather the nectar.
• Forager bees transfer it to house bees, where enzymes in their mouthparts convert all the complex sugars into simple sugars: glucose and fructose.
• The condensed version is subsequently distributed into honeycomb cells.
• What has been deposited alters in composition, with water content decreased by 50 to 60%. The bees flutter their wings to achieve this, producing a thick substance.
• With the proper consistency achieved, bees now seal each cell filled with honey using a delicate layer of beeswax.
• When the time to use it comes, the bees chew open the beeswax.

Why Certain Species Do Not Make Honey?

When you next take honey, you will be savoring the labor of thousands of Western Honey Bees (and sometimes their cousins all over the world). Every jar symbolizes millions of visits to flowers, millions of miles of flight, and the amazing coordination of one of the most organized societies of nature.

It could be the common Western Honey Bee, or the giant cliff-dwellers of Asia, or the ancient stingless bees of the tropics, but these wonderful insects have been making human life sweeter thousands of years. And with our help and protection, hopefully, they will keep on doing so with thousands more.

Ultimately, if the bees can locate nectar everywhere, they won’t participate in honey production since it is pointless.