Do Bees Eat Honey?
Yes, Bees eat honey. It is a food source for the Bees along with the nectar which the worker bees harvest. The Bees suck up the honey and when consumed the sugars are transformed into energy.
Honey is produced by a number of digestion and regurgitation processes and is stored in the individual cells of the honeycomb. Honey is very important to Honey Bees because it is used to sustain the Hive over the colder months. Without it the swarm would more than likely die out. Therefore the semi domesticated hives are carefully managed so that some honey remains to feed to bees. If food sources are running low sugar supplements are provided by vigilant beekeepers.
The queen bee is the only bee which will not eat honey directly. They eat what is called Royal Jelly which is the substance that turns ordinary bees into the queen bee. It consists of pollen, which is chewed, and is mixed with a chemical secreted by a gland in the head of nursing bee. This "milk" or "mass of pollen" is given to all larvae in the first two days of life.
The larvae selected to become a queen to continue to eat only royal jelly. The queen grows one and a half times larger than the common bee, and is able to produce up to two thousand eggs a day. The queen bee lives forty times that of bees on a normal diet. There is no difference between a queen bee and worker in the larvalstage.
Information about Honey Bees
Do Honey Bees Sting?
Do Bees Eat Honey?
Do Bumble Bees Make Honey?
Where do Honey Bees Live?
How Honey Bees Make Honey?
Are Honey Bees Endangered?
Honey Bees Extinction?
These questions are a way into the world of Honey Bees, select one from the list above.
