• Question: What is inside flowers that could make honey and how do bees make honey from flowers

    Asked by issi2001 to Anil, Blanka, Cees, Emma, Mike on 29 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Emma Trantham

      Emma Trantham answered on 29 Jun 2012:


      Flowers have nectar, which is basically a sugar solution and this is what attracts the bees to the flowers.

      A bee will basically suck up the nectar and then fly back to the hive with it. Here they will pass it to other bees (mouth to mouth). These bees have enzymes in them that convert some of the sugars in the nectar into a slightly different sugar combination and then the nectar is put into the comb (I assume by the bee spitting it back out). Once in the comb the water in the nectar starts to evaporate until it becomes thick honey.

      Do you like honey? Have you ever noticed that honey from different flowers tastes different?

    • Photo: Blanka Sengerova

      Blanka Sengerova answered on 29 Jun 2012:


      And for a random fact, which I only learnt about recently – did you know that you can’t feed honey to young babies because it contains a bacterium called Clostridium botulinum, which could cause problems for a young infant as its immune system is not yet as well developed as that of older children and adults.

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