Day 25 - Tecoma flowers and the feasting Giant Honey bees

Bangalore diaries 

If you look carefully, there's a pair of legs and a butt. Inside the Tecoma flower...

They belong to this - the Giant Honey bee  Apis dorsata.  Bees love yellows.

On to the next flower - I loved the way they would deftly "walk" into the tubular part, have their sip...

emerge out again and then proceed to the next flower, 

following the nectar guides, so cleverly put out by the Tecoma - see the red lines.

I am reminded of the emergency exit lights, runway lights and so many other guiding lights we humans have created, and here is the Tecoma, showing the way to the bee with these Nectar Guides. Nectar Guides.  in the Tacoma, the Guides are visible, in other plants I learnt that they may be visible to these insects - with their special UV light vision.

The Tecoma flowers are open through the day, so this is a 24x7 convenience store for bees, and the bees oblige!  Watching the bees reminded me of us humans at a wine tasting tour in a vineyard!

The Tecoma has figured this out so successfully that it proliferates happily and out-competes other natives quite easily.  

The Giant Honey Bee for its part takes pollen and nectar, and is competing with the nectar "robbers" - the critters that may puncture and gain nectar the "illegal" way rather than using the nectar guides in a decent and polite manner.  These nectar robbers (Stingless bees and Carpenter bees) could grab their nectar even from unopened buds, because they force their way in, and this destroys the flowers.  I read an article that 94% of the flowers are destroyed by the nectar robbers.  So that's the check and balance in nature for the Tecoma proliferation.

The poor beleaguered bees, faced with nectar larceny on the one hand and hive raiders including us humans on the other.  No wonder they are under stress.  And then there is air pollution that is giving them a hard time too.

Why do we need honey in this day and age of sugar extraction from cane and palm and corn and maple?  Honey as a sweetener is an old tradition, pre-dating sugar - my theory.  We don't need it now.  The bees do.  They make it for themselves and for their babies.  Maybe it's time we stopped being hive robbers.  😑

The chemistry of honey.

All honey begins with nectar. Whereas honey is viscous and has a low water content, nectar is about 80% water. It’s a very thin solution- colorless and not nearly as sweet as honey. It’s also chemically different. Through the use of enzymes, bees are able to convert the complex sugar in nectar into more simple sugars.

Honey bees don’t just gather the nectar, they change the nectar chemically. They produce an enzyme called invertase in their salivary glands. Enzymes are organic compounds that speed up a biochemical reaction. These enzymes are not used up in the reaction, so they can be used over and over again. After the nectar is gathered by the bee, invertase is added. This enzyme helps change sucrose into equal parts glucose and fructose. It’s the beginning of honey. Other enzymes also help honey taste better. Amylase is an enzyme that helps break down amylose into glucose. Glucose is easier to digest and it’s what makes honey sweeter. Another enzyme, glucose oxidase, then breaks down the glucose and stabilizes the pH of the honey. Catalase changes hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen. This keeps the hydrogen peroxide content low. (Even though some people believe that the hydrogen peroxide in honey is what helps preserve it, it’s probably due more to its slightly acidic pH and low water content.)

Like any good chemists, bees follow a protocol in order to make honey. Forager bees draw in nectar through their proboscis (straw-like tongue.) They then add invertase while they carry the nectar. This invertase begins breaking down the sucrose into glucose and fructose in the honey stomach (crop). The foragers then transfer the nectar to the house bees, where more enzymes are added. This enzyme-adding process continues each time another bee picks up the nectar. House bees regurgitate and re-drink the nectar over a 20 minute period, which further breaks down the sugars. When the nectar is about 20% water, it is deposited on the honeycomb, where the bees fan it to speed up the evaporation process and further condense the honey. The bees stop when the water concentration is between 17-18% and move it to its storage location. Thus, through the use of evaporation and enzymes, a supersaturated solution has been formed.

So much effort and magic from the bees.