Bees make themselves two types of food, pollen and nectar.
Pollen is the bright colored powder inside of flowers, this is the stuff that irritates you in the summer if you are prone to get allergies. The bees collect this from flowers to take home and eat. If you look closely to your bees at the beginning of the bee year you will see small, brightly colored balls stuck on a bee’s hind legs. These are called pollen sacks and they are where the bees put pollen to take back to the hive, though there isn’t actually a pouch or “sack” back there for the pollen, instead the bees use their saliva to get the pollen sticky and then they rub it on the back of their legs. When the pollen makes it back to the hive the bees put it in a cell (see Frames for more details) and leave it to ferment, thy can’t eat it before it ferments. This is their “carbs” or their bread.
Nectar is the same thing as honey except it isn’t as far along the process as honey is. Bees collect nectar from flowers and bring it back to the hive. When they get the nectar back they pass it along to other bees and mix their saliva into it, then they put it in a cell and dry it. If they don’t do this the honey will ferment and taste bad to them. When the nectar is dried enough not to ferment the bees will cap the cells closed with wax and the nectar is then called honey. This is bee’s main course.
If you get bad allergies eating local honey is the best thing to do, honey naturally has a little bit of pollen inside of it so when you consume local honey you take in a little bit of the pollen that is also in the air and this can help calm down your allergy symptoms. If you are from around Mount Vernon Ohio go to the Honey Shop to get your honey now and get rid of those nasty allergies!