Adult worker bees are tasked with searching for flower nectar within a radius of 5 – 10 kilometers from the nest. To fill his tank, he may move from one flower to hundreds of other flowers. Freshly sucked flower nectar is still very runny with a water content range of 60%-70%.
In the stomach reservoir, the nectar that has just been sucked is mixed with several enzymes including the diastase enzyme which changes the nectar into honey and this mixing makes the nectar that has become honey thicker.
When they arrive back at the nest, the bees will release honey from their stomach to be placed in the hexagonal cells/nest cavity. However, if it is deemed too runny, the bee will give it to another bee to mix the honey with the enzymes in its friend’s stomach. If necessary, give it again to several subsequent bees until it feels thick enough to be accommodated in the nest cells.
This is unique bee behavior and also illustrates that the cooperation between bees in a colony is very compact.
When the honey has been stored in the nest cavity, the task of the guard bees, namely young worker bees, is to evaporate the water content in the honey by flapping their wings alternately day and night for several days until the honey is considered ripe enough. This process is called evaporating. The final stage, they will cover the nest cavity with beeswax.
