Bees are insects that feed on pollen. However, the flowering of plants in nature is seasonal. Whenever winter comes, the flowers as the source of honey will be greatly reduced or even disappear completely. In order to avoid starvation in winter, bees must store the pollen collected at ordinary times, while fresh pollen cannot be stored for a long time. Only by brewing pollen into honey that is not easy to deteriorate and storing it, can they meet the needs of bees themselves and their offspring in the future. This is the same reason that farmers process fresh vegetables into pickles and pickles and store them.
How do bees collect pollen? Each bee has to go out to collect pollen dozens of times a day and visit dozens or even hundreds of flowers each time, but even if the collected pollen is filled with two pollen baskets on the back foot, it is only enough to brew 0.5g of honey. If you want to brew 1kg honey and assume that the hive is 1km away from the honey source plant, a bee will fly about 40000 kilometers, which is equivalent to a full circle around the earth!
When a bee on a reconnaissance mission finds the honey source, it will return to the nest and tell other companions the direction and distance of the honey source plant with "dance language" at the door of the house. If there is food nearby, it will dance a relatively simple "circle dance"; If the food is far away, it will dance a more complex figure 8 "swing dance". The information conveyed by "dance language" includes the energy required to reach the honey source, the nature of the honey source and the direction relative to the sun. The worker bees who understand the meaning will then set out to collect honey together. The closer the honey source, the faster the dance rhythm of bees. Experimental observation showed that the fastest worker bee could find the nearest honey source 5 minutes after the dance message was sent.
So, how do bees turn the collected pollen into honey? First, all worker bees concentrate the pollen collected hard all day in an empty nest chamber. In the evening, the worker bees swallow the pollen into their stomach for modulation, then spit it out and swallow it. After repeated hundreds of times, the pollen can be brewed into honey. When raising bees in captivity, beekeepers often take honey from the hive, resulting in the lack of honey in the hive. In this way, as long as there are honey source plants around the hive, worker bees will go out to collect pollen and make honey.
Bees collect pollen subjectively to obtain food to meet the needs of their own survival, but collecting pollen needs to shuttle between a large number of flowers. This behavior process objectively acts as a messenger for cross pollinated plants to spread pollen, so that these plants can bear fruits and seeds normally. There are more than 20000 kinds of bees in the world, all of which like flowers. Bees and flowers cooperate with each other and coexist mutually in the long-term evolution. Plants that rely on bees for pollination often have bright (yellow or blue) and sweet flowers. The petals have invisible honey markings, which can guide pollinators to the flowers. Honey markings can only be seen under ultraviolet light, which is one of the best examples of coevolution among natural species.
Bee pollination wastes less pollen and is much more efficient than wind pollination. It is the most important pollinator. Bees make honey subjectively not for "sweet all over the world", but objectively for the benefit of mankind. In addition to bees, there are other bees, such as bumblebees, wasps, ants, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles and thrips, and a large number of insects also provide pollination services for plants. According to authoritative estimates, pollinators all over the world directly and indirectly create a value of up to $100 billion for mankind every year!