Queen bees are essential members of a hive, providing nourishment to workers and drones – essential insects that keep the hive buzzing. Without queen bees, there would be no buzzing!
Queen bees have the power to manage the size and composition of their hive, as well as determine its laying habits. With such a demanding job that necessitates plenty of food, it’s no surprise that queen bees rely on a combination of honey, pollen and royal jelly for sustenance.
Contents
1. Honey
Honey is a sticky and thick food made by bees from sugary secretions found in flowers or other plant materials. This refining process takes place both within each bee through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, and during storage in the hive through water evaporation that concentrates the sugars into an intensely viscous substance.
Bees produce honey from nectar of flowers and honeydew secreted by aphids. Producing this nectar requires a great deal of energy, so they must maintain an even production to provide enough for their colony’s needs.
Once the queen lays her eggs, worker bees will take the larvae and place them at the center of a cell. Here they feed these little insects a nutritious diet of royal jelly which activates their reproductive systems and makes them queen bees. This whitish milky substance is considered a superfood as it contains protein, simple sugars, fatty acids, B vitamins, trace minerals as well as antibacterial and antibiotic components.
2. Pollen
Pollen is a substance that contains germ cells necessary for fertilization – the process by which plants reproduce. It’s an inert powder that can be collected by bees, insects or other animals.
Flowering plant pollen grains contain two cells: a vegetative tube cell which produces the pollen tube and a generative cell that divides to form two sperm nuclei. During fertilization, these male gametes fuse to form one fertilized egg.
Pollen grains from different plant species differ slightly in shape and appearance. Some have special adaptations that enable them to cling onto various modes of transportation, like bird feathers or bee legs; others are designed for flight with appendages that resemble airplane wings or hot air balloons.
Queen bees consume an abundance of pollen as they develop into queens. Additionally, they feed on a mixture of pollen, honey and enzymes known as “bee bread” for the first three days after hatching from their eggs.
3. Bee Bread
Bee bread is the product of a fermentation process used by honey bees to produce protein-rich royal jelly for the queen and her developing larvae. It’s made by mixing pollen, honey, glandular secretions and sometimes microorganisms together.
The chemical composition of raw materials differs based on the plant pollens collected by foragers. Some plants produce heavier, sticky grains while others possess small, lightweight ones.
Bees require pollen from various sources for building strong colonies, and when mixed back into the hive it provides them with a complete protein diet.
Bees also add bacteria and mould to their mixture, aiding in breaking down some of the pollen for easier digestion and an enhanced supply of essential vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. As a result, bee bread becomes more digestible for humans as well as providing them with essential vitamins, minerals, and other essential elements.
4. Water
Bees require water for survival. They collect it from various sources such as puddles of cow dung, sewage effluent and snow melt.
Bees collect pollen and nectar in addition to water in order to store it away for winter.
They will then use this food in the spring to build their comb and fill it with honey, helping the colony survive until temperatures warm up again.
A queen bee must feed her hive with royal jelly, which is secreted from her glands. This is essential for her development into a reproductive queen.
