Honey is enjoyed by humans and animate being alike the world over , but if stories about it being delicious bee puke have put you off your breakfast , you could rest assured it ’s not regorge – but it ’s also not much respectable .
There are around20,000 speciesof bees in the world and , of these , less than 4 percent produce honey . The honey - develop species feed onnectar and pollen . Nectar is a sugary vim source that facilitates fly and comb building in adult bees , but it is also take back to the hive to be change over into honey to feed in to the colony ’s young .
While honey is made up of at least181components , it is basically just80 percentsugar and 15 percentage water . It ’s also slightly acidic and has balmy antiseptic properties , as well as being downright delightful .
Honey - producing bees give rise two kinds of solid food for their unseasoned in the beehive , and while they ’re both made using nectar , it ’s the operation that makes the Cartesian product unique . And no , neither is barf .
The honey that we eat is produced in the bee ’s honey sac , or dear stomach , and it gets its flavour from the type of peak the nectar is collected from . While the term “ stomach secernment ” is not exactly helping beloved beat the puking allegation , the organ honey is produce in is entirely separate from the bee ’s function " food venter " .
The honey sac , or crop , is a specialized organ that works as astorefor nectar or water , enabling the bee to safely transport it back to the hive . Once habitation , the bee will regurgitate the nectar in a process calledtrophallaxis , and begin adding gelt - inverting enzymes to the ambrosia to create sweet , sweetened honey . This love is then stored in a honeycomb within the beehive and is used to feed both the adult and larval bees .
In improver to the honey we know and bed , bees also produceroyal jelly . This is a extremely alimentary secernment used to give queen bee larvae throughout the larval stop and to feed actor and poke larvae for the first three days of their living . Royal jelly is a thick , blank substance produce from the glands in the heads of worker bee .
masses have also thought to conflate the two bee products and market it as “ purple honey ” . But while both honey and royal jelly do have nutritionary benefit for humans , the claim that royal honey can be used as a muscular aphrodisiac are wholly uncorroborated .
So , what did we learn ? While beloved does technically come from a “ stomach ” , and imperial jelly comes from a gland , allow ’s just get to name them “ bodily secretions ” rather than wrongly labeling it as vomit . Oh , and royal love wo n’t make you skilful in bottom .
