Bees consume nectar as a source of energy and pollen as protein; their precise mix and proportion depend on each individual bee’s role within their hive.
Worker bees use an appendage called the proboscis to collect honey and nectar, visiting flowers to forage for pollen using special baskets on their hind legs to quickly gather and transport it.
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Nectar
Bee diets consist of two primary elements; protein (in the form of pollen) and carbs (nectar). That’s why honeybees can often be seen buzzing around fruit like watermelons or grapevines in your garden – they use probosces (complex mouthparts) to collect nectar-filled flowers and fruit juices with their probosces before returning back to their hive where other bees regurgitate it back into their crop for digestion into honey production.
Honey provides bees with their primary source of energy and also boasts antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and probiotic properties. Bees use honey to feed their larvae and drones that will become future kings and queens; worker bees create bee bread by mixing honey and pollen together while royal jelly is an exclusive food supplement made especially to feed queen bees as well as larvae destined to become queens.
Pollen
Pollen provides bees with protein-rich food sources from flowers. Bees collect this yellowish or greenish powder-like substance from herbs, cottage garden flowers, trees and shrubs in order to get their supply.
Bees collect pollen using hairs called setae on their bodies, then deposit it in pollen baskets on their hind legs for storage. Bees also secret glandular secretions to inhibit harmful bacterial activity and prepare it for long-term storage – this bee bread forms the mainstay of honey bee diets.
Bees like all animals require a diverse diet for proper functioning. Researchers are developing ways to provide them with more nutritional food sources; one strategy includes sowing wildflower seeds and cutting back on lawnmowing in fields, roadside edges, parks and gardens in order to encourage natural forage sources that provide bees with a more well-balanced source of proteins, sugars and fats that meet their dietary requirements.
Fruit
Contrary to popular perception, bees are not carnivorous creatures, hunting down unsuspecting prey with their stingers; rather they are vegetarians.
Bees forage flowers for pollen and nectar as their two primary sources of protein and energy, with nectar serving as an attractant while pollen contains male gametes to fertilise another flower.
Foraging bees carry pollen from flower to flower on stiff hairs attached to their hind legs – known as pollen baskets – using pollen baskets. When flowers are scarce, bees collect nectar to feed their young and store for future use. When nectar sources don’t present themselves readily enough, foraging bees will eat overripe fruit or extrafloral nectari from trees and shrubs as food sources or raid other colonies in times of extreme need.
Sweets
Honey bees feed on nectar produced by flowers to attract them, which contains water, sugars, carbohydrates, amino acids, vitamins and minerals.
Bees use their complex mouthparts, known as proroboscises, to extract nectar from flowers and return it to their hive where it feeds larvae and queen bees – as well as being used for honey production.
Pollen is a yellow or green powdery substance containing protein and other chemicals, consumed by nurse bees to stimulate their brood food glands and produce food for their young including royal jelly.
Beekeepers sometimes feed their colonies sugar syrup or dry sugar as an aid when the season is short or conditions unfavorable, to supplement natural sweet supplies and boost natural honey production. When placing syrup inside the hive for feeding purposes at evening time to minimize risk of robber bees robbing it from within; to prevent caramelisation using a feeder with an easily secured lid such as jar or tin with push down lid is best practice to ensure safe use.
