05/18/2026
There is something extra sweet about eating honey from bees🐝 you've cared for.
If I'm being totally honest, I struggle to take honey from the bees. 🥹
I'm a beekeeper but trust and believe, these tiny little creatures are in the business of making honey and know exactly what they are doing with or without me....they were made perfect...nature’s tiny surveyors, artists, engineers, mathematicians, and so much more—measuring landscapes, crafting perfect geometry, designing thriving civilizations, and turning flowers into liquid gold.
Did you know that it takes one honey bee her entire life (5-6 weeks), to make 1/12 teaspoon of honey.
She will visit anywhere from 5,000-8,000 flowers in her lifetime collecting nectar. This nectar is stored in her special honey stomach where enzymes convert the complex sugars into simpler sugars like fructose and glucose.
Once back at the hive, she will regurgitate the honey into the honeycomb cells and the bees will begin fanning the nectar with their wings to reduce the amount of water in it. Once the water content has been reduced from approximately 80% water down to 17%, the bees will cap the honey with a pellet of wax.
So let's think about this for just a minute...🤔💡
That 16oz jar of honey you love...it takes approximately 800 bees their entire lifetime (remember 5-6 weeks) of foraging to make that jar of honey.
NOW you see why I struggle to take honey from my bees. 😮💨
So, if you love honey, be sure to whisper thank you the next time a sweet honey bee buzzes past you on her way to work...☺️ she works hard for you to have honey.
And if you really want to show your appreciation, help the honey bees out and don't use insecticides. Most of the insects you are trying to kill are beneficial to the success of our overall ecosystem.
And REMEMBER, dandelions and clover are one of the first major food sources for bees after a long winter of surviving on resources collected and stored in the hive the previous fall. Let them grow. They are native and beneficial.
