Is Honey Really “Bee Vomit”? No! Here’s Why.
The notion that honey is “bee vomit” comes from the fact that bees chew and spit up nectar before it is made into honey. Most people agree with this assumption because it is a substance that goes down their esophagus into a second stomach then is forced back up, which is what vomit is.
However, some scientists have a more technical approach to the assumption. An apiculturist from UC Davis once said:
“I make the distinction between honey bee regurgitation and mammalian vomit based on the fact that the nectar and honey being processed by the bees never have direct contact with food being processed, or expected to be processed, ‘digestively’ as is the food in a mammalian stomach.”
The place where the bees store the nectar is called the “crop” and most think of it as a second stomach, however it is never used to digest food in honey bees. Instead, the sole purpose of it is to hold nectar.
How Honey is Made
The first step of honey production begins when bees collect flower nectar with their tongues and store it inside their extra stomach– the “crop.” Inside the crop, the nectar gets broken down into simple sugars that makes it more fit for long-term storage. Once the forager bees get to their hive, the nectar is either transferred to honey pots located outside of the hive so other bees have access to it or transferred directly into a processor bee’s crop. Then, the nectar is regurgitated from bee to bee until it is finally placed inside the honeycomb. When bees regurgitate the nectar, they force it back up through a tube in their throat.
Then, bees work by fanning the honeycomb with their wings in order to get all of the extra water out of the nectar. Once the majority of water has evaporated from the honeycomb, the bees will seal it with a liquid secreted from their abdomen which hardens into beeswax. Once the honey is sealed, it can be kept indefinitely for bees to feed on during the cold months, or it can be harvested by beekeepers.
How Different Nectar Affects Honey Production
Bees have an important decision to make when they are choosing what flower to gather nectar from. The taste, color, and smell of the honey depends on the bloom or flower the bee visits, so bees who visit orange blossoms will produce different honey than those who visit lavender fields. That being said, researchers have wondered how the viscosity of a flower’s nectar can impact a bee’s process of making honey. The idea is that if a flower’s nectar is less thick (or less concentrated with sugar), it is easier and quicker for bees to drink and regurgitate. In a recent study conducted by Dr. Jonathan Pattrick, a researcher in the University of Oxford’s Department of Zoology, he found that bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) took 6 or 7 times as long to regurgitate solutions with a higher sugar concentration, and they preferred a lower concentrated solution.
Therefore, No, Honey is not “Vomit”!
Technically speaking, honey is not bee vomit. The nectar travels down a valve into an expandable pouch called the crop where it is kept for a short period of time until it is transferred to a receiving bee back at the hive. It is best explained by Eric Mussen from UC Davis:
“Since honey never is mixed with digesting food in the intestinal tract, it is inaccurate to refer to honey as ‘bee vomit.’
A dictionary definition of vomit includes ‘disgorging the stomach contents through the mouth.’ Since a human does not have a crop, the stomach is in direct contact with the esophagus and mouth. In a bee, the proventriculus and crop are in direct contact with the mouth. The digestion of solid foods in bees begins in the ventriculus and there is no way that a honey bee can bring that food back through the proventriculus, or ‘vomit.’”
The act of vomiting has a negative connotation that does not best describe the precise and intricate steps that bees take to create honey.