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Beekeeping Information

What Does A Honeybee Eat?

Bees eat nectar, pollen, honey, and sweets. They also drink water.


"One little bee yard some place is a kind of hub for understanding a whole huge swathe of territory."
Peter Nelson
Dance of the Honey Bee
Nectar is a sweet fluid produced by flowers. Worker bees climb into flowers and drink the nectar for nourishment. They also store it in a pouch-like structure called a crop. They fly back to the hive with the stored nectar and pass it to other bees. The nectar is then mixed with enzymes and placed into a cell in the honeycomb. Bees then fan their wings over the nectar in order to help all the water evaporate out of the nectar. What is left is a concentrated sweet substance - honey! The bees cover the cell full of honey with wax. Now, when the weather turns cold and there are no more flowers they will still have something to eat. Honey!

Bees may fly up to six miles in search of nectar. As they collect nectar they also collect pollen from the flower. Pollen is the yellowish or greenish powder-like substance that sometimes comes from flowers. It may be quite sticky. Bees have lots of hairs all over their bodies, and when they climb into the flower looking for nectar, the pollen sticks to their hairs. After getting pollen on their body hairs, the bees move it to a special area on their hind legs called pollen baskets . Foraging bees returning to the hive often have bright  yellow or greenish balls of pollen hanging from these pollen baskets. Pollen actually has a lot of protein which is really good for young bees to eat in order to become healthy and strong. Honey bees mix the pollen with some nectar to form a mixture called beebread that is a protein-rich food used to feed the young bees.
Honey bees are also attracted to sweets, especially liquid sweets like open cans of soda. They will happily drink water and sugar mixed together.

Bees also need water. They prefer shallow pools of water, like puddles or bird baths. Kevin, who is an irrigation designer, created a little water feature for our bees. The bees drink the water. They also use it to keep the hive cool and to dilute honey fed to young bees. Check out this video of bees enjoying a cool drink.

Climate has a very big effect on how much food is available to bees. For example, if there is a drought, flowers may not grow and bees will not be able to survive. If it is too hot, plants may not produce as much nectar, and the hive will be in danger.
This past summer was very hot. Although Kevin and Jessica have a garden full of flowers and another garden full of vegetables (which also produce flowers), Kevin knew the hot weather would change how much nectar would be available to the bees. He knew they might be in danger of going hungry if he didn’t feed them. So, every week he placed a mason jar full of sugar water in each hive. He mixed the sugar water himself. Each week he would discover the jar he had placed in the hive the week before was totally empty. That shows how hungry the bees were. He used four pounds of sugar each week to feed the three hives - about 200,000 bees. Four pounds of sugar is about one bag of sugar. Kevin also made sure to put out sugar water for the hummingbirds every few days and kept the birdbath full.
Fun Fact: Bees rely on there sight to find flowers. The flower have colorful petals, many of which have shiny patches that humans can't see. These shiny patches are called bee guides or nectar guides. They guide the bees to the nectar.

The shape of the flower is also important. Some flowers have flat areas for ease of landing by bees and others have elaborate modifications to ensure pollen sticks to any bee that visits. Bees cannot see red, so hummingbirds and butterflies get red flower nectar all to themselves.