Diet Information

Honey bees form a highly organized society and for thousands of years they have been of great interest to humans. According to Great Plains Nature Center, humans have written about honey bees more than any other species of insects, which signals that they really have something special that's worth cherishing. When it comes to their diet,the honey bee's diet consists of various ingredients which together help the honey bee grow and develop so that eventually it can produce honey.

Check out what are Bee's eats :

Pollen
For the first 5 or 6 days of a honey bee's adult life, it consumes great amounts of pollen in order to obtain lipids, vitamins, minerals and protein necessary for completing its development and growth. Nectar is also part of the honey bee diet and between the tenth and the fourteenth day of their adult life, the main dietary source of worker bees is made up of carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are gathered as necture from plants, trees and flowers and they serve as an important source of nutrition.

Nectar
The nectar is actually the sweet water that collects on plants such as flowers, while pollen is a powder that is very rich in proteins. The bees' diet consists of a lot of nectar, but at the end of the day they are not gorging themselves. The nectar is taken to the hive where it's used extensively for the production of honey. Together, pollen and necture give honey bees the necessary ingredients for producing the various types of honey required for the survival of the colony.

Honey
As previously stated, honey is produced by the bees using the nectar they collect from flowers and other similar plants. Honey makes up an important part of the honey bees' diet and they eat it every day of the year. Not only is honey hydroscopic and easily digestible, but at the same time it also has great antibacterial properties that keeps the bees in good health.

Water
In order to maintain normal behavior, brood rearing, composition and nutritional levels, water is a vital element in a bee's diet and according to various authority apiculture websites online, it needs to be available to the bees at all times. 

Sugar Syrup
To ensure that the honey bees are properly nurtured, beekeepers need to ensure they provide them with a thick mixture of water and sugar in equal amounts. Before giving it to the bees, they need to wait until the mixture hardens and when that happens, they place it over the cluster and the brood nest so the bees can consume it, this is only recommended when the hive has no honey reserves to feed as the ph is very different in sugar water than it is in honey. 

Dry Sugar
Not every day of the year is great for feeding bees regular syrup and that is why in late winter, bee keepers will feed them dry sugar as an emergency method only

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"Q. When is the best time to feed the bees?"
"A. The best thing is never to feed them, but let them gather their own stores. But if the season is a failure, as it is some years in most places, then you must feed. The best time for that is just as soon as you know they will need feeding for winter; say in August or September. October does very well, however, and even if you haven't fed until December, better feed then than to let the bees starve."

--C.C. Miller, A Thousand Answers to Beekeeping Questions, 1917

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