How do bees create a home and what is a honeycomb?

Honey bees are one of the most industrious insects, and the honey produced by them has unique healing properties. It has found wide application in the cosmetic field, folk medicine, as well as its useful properties are confirmed by official science. But honey is not the only product of the life of bees. One of the most interesting is the bee honeycomb.

Bee house

What is a honeycomb? This is a spoken cell designation. In bees they are hexagonal and are arranged symmetrically. Wax buildings of the Medonos serve as an excellent storage for honey, they also grow young animals, and honeycombs also serve as a home for their creators. Rationality of the use of free space in bee building can be envied by any construction company. Each honeycomb wall is also one of the walls of neighboring cells. In beekeeping, special thin wax sheets are used to help bees, on which are pressed the hexagonal bottoms consisting of three rhombuses. It is this design that becomes the basis for future wax structures. These sheets are called waxes, they are attached to rectangular wooden frames, which are specially installed in the hives. On one wax there are a lot of little bottoms, hence the name after the word "honeycomb" came from "one hundred." Many people engaged in breeding bees to people have seen the work of insects on wax, and they understand what a honeycomb is and how it is built.

Where does the wax come from?

In the wild, bees perfectly cope with the construction of hives and without human intervention. The wax used for the construction of honeycomb is produced independently by these remarkable insects, but only young and with sufficient, increased consumption of fresh flower nectar and pollen. In a soft state bee building material is very pliable and it can easily be given any shape that will persist after solidification. Strength and durability are inherent in this material, as well as its high hygiene and resistance to various microorganisms and oxidizing action of oxygen.

When do bees start to make honeycombs?

During the spring awakening of nature, bees begin to conduct their construction work. With the advent of the first flowers, it is possible for insects to collect nectar and pollen. With a sufficient number of these substances in the body, the bees begin to work special wax glands, from which material is allocated for the future honeycombs. First, the cells corrupted for the winter are fixed and only then the workers begin to create new ones, attaching them to the ready ones.

The honeycomb differs in color. At first it is light, almost white, with a light cream tint. In such a honeycomb, the content of wax is close to 100%. They are the most useful and clean. If honey was already stored in honeycombs or young bees were being taken out, then the material darkens and its color turns yellow, brown and even almost black. The darker the honeycomb, the more it contains all kinds of impurities and the less wax itself.

Honeycombs and honey

What is a honeycomb is known to every beekeeper, and at the beginning of the active period of livelihoods of bees, the breeders try to multiply the economy. The bee-families are taken away from noisy cities to flower meadows and add fresh waxes to the hives. After all, insects-workers love space. In a natural nest of wild bees, there are usually eight honeycombs, they are parallel and are located vertically at exactly the same distance from each other - one and a quarter centimeter. The distance between cells is called "bee streets" is not accidental - insects move on them in a certain order.

The structure of the nest in bees is very rational. Above is a vault for honey, below is a honeycomb with a growing bee offspring, where there is very good access to fresh air, and at the very bottom is a kind of industrial combine. In the lower honeycomb honeycombs, bees are demolished nectar, which is then dried, enriched with enzymes and processed into honey, after which the finished product is transferred to the upper storage. As a result, you get a delicious and aromatic honeycomb.

What is honeycomb or uterine honeycomb? In the hive, in addition to honey, there are also special cells in which drones are grown and dwell. Their task is to fertilize the uterus. And there are separate uterine honeycombs in which the bee queen grows. Creating each type of cell is a unique and amazing process.