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Bees are dependent on flowers for food. Pollen-their main source of protein, vitamins, minerals, and fat-is necessary for the development of all larval bees. Adult bees forage for pollen and nectar, the sweet liquid produced by flowers. In so doing, they inadvertently transfer pollen grains between flowers, thus pollinating, or fertilizing, plant seeds. Bees also collect nectar as an energy source. They either consume the nectar directly or convert it to honey in the hive.

Larry Crowhurst/Oxford Scientific Films

Honey is a sweet, thick, supersaturated sugar solution manufactured by bees to feed their larvae and for subsistence in winter. The nectar of flowers is ingested by worker bees and converted to honey in special sacs in their esophagi. It is stored and aged in combs in their hives. Bee honey is an important constituent of the diet of many animals, such as bears and badgers, and is put to many uses by humans.

The color and flavor depend on the age of the honey and on the source of the nectar. Light-colored honeys are usually of higher quality than darker honeys; white honey is derived from the Californian white sage. Other high-grade honeys are made from orange blossoms, clover, and alfalfa. A well-known, poorer-grade honey is elaborated from buckwheat.

The fructose in crystallized honey ferments readily at about 60° F or over. Fermented honey is used to make honey wine or mead.

Honey is marketed in the original comb as comb honey, or centrifuged out of the comb and sold as extracted honey. Chunk honey consists of pieces of comb honey suspended in extracted liquid honey.