Bob Britt, Age 9., Of Springfield Ore, for his question:

How do bees make honey?

The warm spring weather coaxes nut the young leaves and the earliest blossoms from the winter twigs. And right away, the honeybee gets busy. Chances area this is her first day's work: but she knows exactly what to do. She is outdoors shopping for the groceries to make food for the other bees of the hive  and the most important food will be a supply of riche sweets golden ..gooey honey

The honeybee and her sisters scout around for blossoms of all kinds, when she finds a good supply the honeybee returns to the hive and dances in sign language to tell her sisters about it. Soon after, another and another and another bee zooms out and buzzes straight to the flowers. Each little bee lands on a blossoms uncoils her long tongue and dips it deep into the throat of the flower,

She is sucking up sweets liquid nectar and will go from flower to flower until her little stomach is full. This nectar is the main ingredient for making honey.¬but no one except the honeybee can make honey from flower nectar. The recipe begins in a special stomach which is a pouch called the honey bag, here the chemicals in the watery nectar are changed into sugars.

Back inside the hives the honeybee empties the sugary mixture into one of the whites wary cells of a honeycomb. It is still too watery to be used as honey. But soon the water begins to evaporate and the mixture becomes thick and sticky and at last the honey is ready. Some will be used to make royal jelly for the queen mother and some will be used. To make wax for more honeycombs. Some will be eaten by drones  and worker bees, and some will be stored in the combs to feed the bees through the winter.

Honey is a mixture of rich sugars, and almost everybody is very fond of the sweet tasting stuff. The experts tell us that it is a valuable food rich in enzymes., minerals and vitamins, it is easy to digest, and its sweet sugars give a quick supply of energy. Once in a great while we find a nourishing food which is delicious to taste and the honey made by the busy honeybee is the very best of these good foods.

The busy bee hives of the United States produce about 125,000 tons of honey every year and we buy still more honey from foreign countries. Some goes to market right in the waxy combs., but most honey is strained and purified. Some is used to make candies.. Sweetmeats and desserts, and some is used to sweeten the flavor of bitter medicines. But honey is most delicious when we spread it on bread or biscuits., mix it with fruit or cereals.