How do honey bees make honey?

When honeybees go out to forage on flowers, they suck the nectar through their straw-like tongues, evaporate some of its water inside their mouth and store it in the first chamber of their stomachs, a segment specially designed to hold up to 80% of a bee’s weight in nectar. There, enzymes start to break down the nectar into simpler sugars that cannot solidify.

The honeybee makes its way back to the hive and regurgitates the processed sugary solution into the mouths of other bees, who are charged with packing into the small beeswax hexagon chambers. They then fan the nectar with their wings to help it evaporate further until it becomes closer to what we know as honey. Once the honey is ready, the bees seal the honeycomb segment with beeswax and store it for the winter.