Messy Leia.
This afternoon I was watching my toddler, Leia, eat her lunch. I was amused to see that she chose her food using a most honeybee like system of selection. Leia would first eat her grilled cheese sandwich, move on to the cheese blocks, and lastly follow up with some fried zucchini. It seemed to follow the path of least nutrition. Priority was given to the tastier food although definitely not the more nutritious foods. Honeybees follow a similar methodology when selectively choosing nectar sources.
On a given day there are thousands of honeybees scouting around for the raw materials of honey, nectar. Nectar from plants fall into a wide range of water concentration, 8 to 50 percent sugar. So it behooves the honey bees to find the most sugar during a nectar trip. This will later translate into a lesser amount of work for the house bees in the hive. Scouts will fly around and find the richest source of nectar. Taking it back to the hive they will preform a little wagging dance that will tell the other field bees the directions, distance, and quality of the nectar source. This passing of information will allow the colony to then focus on harvesting nectar plants that are yielding the greatest amount of concentrated nectar.
Once brought back to the hive and regurgitated into the comb, several thousand worker bees will then fan the honey creating an airflow within the hive. Not only will this cool the bees but also reduce the water concentration of the nectar into what we call honey. Roughly 80% sugar and 18% water, and 2% proteins, pollen, and vitamins.
This selective process also allows for distinct flavors to exist within honey. Alfalfa, apple blossom, dandelion, fire weed, manuka, orange blossom, clover, and wild flower among some of the flavors. All because bees will concentrate on one flower variety at a time.
So watch your child or grandchild next time they eat and see if they are mono-selective eaters.
