Celebrating Science: The science of bees and honey
By ElzahraaI have been wondering why my family loves honey so much. My mother would always ask me to add it to my oatmeal, toast and my crackers for my breakfast. When I have a sore throat, my mother would prepare a honey and lemon drink to soothe my throat. She said honey, which is sweet, is medicine, but medicine tastes bitter! Urggh! I am confused! We never run out of honey in my house. There must be something special about honey. I shall tell you about it.
It takes more than a month or 45 days to make honey. One teaspoon of honey is made by the lives of 12 hardworking bees. I would surely feel guilty if I spilled honey. Honey, which has a smooth texture is also a natural sweetener, which is different from the sugar that you add in your coffee. Honey has plenty of health benefits too. It contains vitamins and minerals and are easily added to your daily diet. Honey has properties that kill germs too. Doctors are studying if honey is effective to treat wounds, especially those caused by burns.
I am awed by how bees make honey. Basically, bees collect nectar from flowers. They could travel 55000 miles to collect nectar before returning to their beehives. Another group of bees at the beehives would gather the nectar and process it to make honey. Imagine what would happen to us if bees were lazy. There will be a worldwide shortage of honey. We could not use the term “busy bee” anymore!
I found that bees love working as a team. When an enemy attacks their beehives, they will defend it together. Scientists wondered if this teamwork could be applied to us. Engineers have come up with tiny robots that could talk to each other and work as a team, just like bees. This is called a “fuzzy network”. This swarm of tiny robots has been shown in the animation “Big Six.” The idea of bees working together could be very useful to save human lives.
Unfortunately, bees have problems too. They are threatened by chemicals, pesticides and air pollution. Their number could reduce if they are exposed. If that happens there will be not enough bees to pollinate flowers that grow in fruit trees. One third of the food that humans eat is made by bees.
I am amazed with the science of bees and honey. Now, I understand better and have begun to love honey. Not only are honey tasty, they have many benefits for us too. I shall not skip the honey in my diet anymore.