Collecting Honey from a Hive
We are familiar with bees primarily because of the honey they produce; some of us use this sweetener on a daily basis as a healthier, and tastier, substitute for sugar, as a spread for pancakes or bread, as a glaze or ingredient in a variety of recipes, and much more. Bees make honey from the nectar they collect from flowers. As worker bees move from flower to flower, they use a long, tubular tongue (called a proboscis) to suck nectar out of the flower, storing it in special sacs called “honey stomachs.” While the bee continues to collect nectar, the stored nectar begins to react with proteins and enzymes in the honey stomach. These sacs can hold up to 70 milligrams of nectar; when full, a sac itself can weigh almost as much as the bee does. In order to fill the sac, a bee must visit from one hundred to over a thousand flowers. When they return to the hive, worker bees transfer the nectar to other worker bees whose function is to remain in the hive and process nectar. These hive-bound bees “chew” the nectar for thirty minutes, enzymes causing further reactions in the nectar. Complex sugars are broken down into simple sugars that are more easily digested by bees and their larvae, and that are less susceptible to attack by bacteria during storage in the hive. Once the honey has been thoroughly processed, the hive-bound bees transfer it to a honeycomb — a receptacle of hexagonal cells that the bees make from beeswax. To further process the nectar into honey, it must be thickened; nectar is 80 percent water, whereas honey is only 14-18 percent water. The bees facilitate the evaporation process by fanning their wings. When the honey has sufficiently thickened, the bees will cap the cells with more beeswax; the honey is stored until the bees need it to eat themselves or feed to their young. In a normal year, a bee colony can produce from 120 to 200 pounds of honey.
How do beekeepers collect honey without destroying a hive? Beekeepers build or purchase their own hives, into which they introduce bee colonies; bees will readily adapt to these man-made hives. One widely used man-made hive design is called a Langstroth bee hive, invented by the Reverend Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth in Philadelphia in 1851. Langstroth hives are noted for having removable frames. These frames are designed such that bees will build their honeycombs inside the frames without attaching the frames to other frames or to the walls of the hive with beeswax or propolis, a resinous substance that bees use as a sealant. The removability of these frames allows a beekeeper tremendous latitude in managing the hive. Also, because Langstroth hives open from the top, a beekeeper can visually inspect a hive’s population for disease and other problems. A single hive can contain many frames for honeycombs; beekeepers know that a honeycomb is filled with honey when all the hexagonal cells have been capped. The beekeeper can then remove the frame by sliding it out of the hive. If the beekeeper sells “comb honey” — the whole comb, including the beeswax cells — then the product is nearly ready for market. All that’s required is packaging. However, most beekeepers will extract the honey from the comb so that it can be bottled, either for local sales or sale to a wholesale agent. In order to extract honey, the beekeeper will first shave off the capping wax with a heated knife, exposing the honey in each cell. The frame is then affixed to an “extractor,” which spins the frame, throwing off the honey by centrifugal force such that the honey drips into a tank. The honey in the tank is then drained into a strainer and filtered through fine-mesh nylon. The resulting honey is still considered raw, as it still contains minute amounts of wax, pollen, and other impurities. Beekeepers often sell their honey in this condition, as many customers of locally produced honey have grown to prefer the raw product. However, honey that is purchased in bulk by agents and then produced commercially will be further refined through heating and additional straining. Commercial honey is a bit thinner than raw honey, as it contains very few impurities. Beekeepers take the empty frames, with the beeswax comb constructions still intact, and reinstall them in the hives. The bees will clean up the frames nicely, moving any trace amounts of honey to other parts of the hive where new honey is being stored, and then refill the frames with new honey. Because the bees don’t have to produce more beeswax and build new hexagonal cells, they can get right to work collecting nectar and producing honey. They only need to produce new beeswax to cap filled cells. Beekeepers must be sure that bees are left with enough honey for their own purposes — to feed themselves and their young. In particular, bees need enough honey to get through the cold season, when collecting more nectar is not possible. Fortunately, bee colonies produce far more honey than they need for their own sustenance. If they see an empty honeycomb, they will quickly get to work filling it with honey, regardless of whether they actually need the honey or not. In this way, the bees stay healthy and active, and the beekeeper, through careful hive management, is able to turn a profit.
Collecting Honey from a Hive
