• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Is Honey Bee Vomit?

January 19, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Honey is enjoyed by humans and animals alike the world over, but if stories about it being delicious bee barf have put you off your breakfast, you can rest assured it’s not vomit – but it’s also not much better.

There are around 20,000 species of bees in the world and, of these, less than 4 percent produce honey. The honey-producing species feed on nectar and pollen. Nectar is a sugary energy source that facilitates flying and comb building in adult bees, but it is also taken back to the hive to be converted into honey to feed to the colony’s young.

Advertisement

While honey is made up of at least 181 components, it is essentially just 80 percent sugar and 15 percent water. It’s also somewhat acidic and has mild antiseptic properties, as well as being downright delicious.

Honey-producing bees produce two kinds of food for their young in the hive, and while they’re both made using nectar, it’s the process that makes the products unique. And no, neither is vomit.

The honey that we eat is produced in the bee’s honey sac, or honey stomach, and it gets its flavor from the type of flower the nectar is collected from. While the term “stomach secretions” is not exactly helping honey beat the vomit allegations, the organ honey is produced in is entirely separate from the bee’s functioning “food stomach”.

The honey sac, or crop, is a specialized organ that works as a store for nectar or water, enabling the bee to safely transport it back to the hive. Once home, the bee will regurgitate the nectar in a process called trophallaxis, and begin adding sugar-inverting enzymes to the nectar to create sweet, sweet honey. This honey is then stored in a honeycomb within the hive and is used to feed both the adult and larval bees.

Advertisement

In addition to the honey we know and love, bees also produce royal jelly. This is a highly nutritious secretion used to feed queen bee larvae throughout the larval period and to feed worker and drone larvae for the first three days of their lives. Royal jelly is a thick, white substance produced from the glands in the heads of worker bees.

People have also thought to combine the two bee products and market it as “royal honey”. But while both honey and royal jelly do have nutritional benefits for humans, the claims that royal honey can be used as a powerful aphrodisiac are entirely unsubstantiated. 

So, what did we learn? While honey does technically come from a “stomach”, and royal jelly comes from a gland, let’s just stick to calling them “bodily secretions” rather than incorrectly labeling it as vomit. Oh, and royal honey won’t make you good in bed.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Taliban say they have entered capital of holdout Afghan region
  2. Over 60 S.Korean crypto exchanges set to suspend services next week
  3. Private groups aiding thousands in Afghanistan worry about dwindling funds
  4. Japan’s Prime Minister Eats Fukushima Fish To Prove It’s Safe

Source Link: Is Honey Bee Vomit?

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Two Major Coral Species Now Functionally Extinct In Florida Keys, After Record-Breaking Marine Heatwave
  • A “Super-Earth” In The Habitable Zone Is Half The Distance To Comparable Worlds
  • Adorable But Critically Endangered Bornean Orangutan Born In Conservation Success
  • How Did The FDA Settle On The “2,000 Calories Per Day” Guideline?
  • Comet 3I/ATLAS Losing At Least Two Kangaroos’ Worth Of Dust Every Second
  • Mummified Dinosaur Duo Prove They Had Hooves, Marking “The First Confirmed Hooved Reptile”
  • What Do The Numbers On Your Toaster Really Mean?
  • NASA Vs. Elon Musk: Is A Moon Landing This Decade Off The Cards?
  • Scientists Explored Some Of The Deepest Parts Of The Ocean And Spotted Some Seriously Weird Deep-Sea Creatures
  • 500-Meter-Tall Megatsunami Struck Remote Alaskan Fjord After Massive Landslide
  • 3I/ATLAS, CKM Syndrome, And Mosquitoes’ Final Frontier
  • Male Humpback Dolphins Spotted Wearing Sea Sponge “Wigs” To Woo The Ladies
  • Can’t Sleep? The Military Sleep Trick That Helps You Fall Asleep in Just 2 Minutes
  • Why You Should Really, Really Not Eat Dolphin Meat
  • Odd Flashes Of Light On The Moon Have Been Recorded For Over A Thousand Years. What Are They?
  • The New York Times Said Machines Wouldn’t Fly For A Million Years (69 Days Before The First Flight)
  • IFLScience The Big Questions: Why Do People Believe In The Paranormal?
  • What Is “Japanese Walking”, And Should You Be Doing It?
  • AI Chatbots Found To Violate Ethical Standards When It Comes To Mental Health Discussions
  • Finding The Last Saolas: The Hunt For One Of The World’s Rarest Mammals Is On
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version