REIDSVILLE, NC -- This Kids Want To Know question is just in time for spring!
"Hi, my name is Jalisa and my question is how do bees make wax"?
Did you know there would be no honey without wax? You see, bee wax is the foundation of the hive. Honey bees build their comb from wax.
2WTK got an up close look at how bees make beeswax with Chuck Norton of Norton's Honey Farm
"Bees do make wax, they make wax with their bodies and the process is quite simple. If they have to hold the nectar that they get from the flowers in there honey stomach for more than 24 hours the carbon builds up in there abdomen and they have eight glands arranged in four parallel pair and those gland produce the wax. "
Chuck went on to explain the bees use that wax to manipulate it and make their own home. Inside that hive this time of the year in the spring you will find three different types of bees.
"The male are called drones. There is two different type of females one the queen, she is the majesty and an egg layer. The other bee inside that hive is a female and it's a worker. She will spend about 21 to thirty days working until she wears out and dies, in doing so she'll bring in pollen, she'll bring in nectar and pollination brings your food to the table."
Chuck says one third of what you eat, one third of what you wear is produced by the honey bee. In fact it takes over 2 million visits to a flower by a honey bee to make a pound of honey.
Who took all the video of Chuck (without a bee suit!)? Photojournalist Ryan Gavette was in a bee suit for the story. He tells his experience of being in the middle of the swarm during 2WTK at 5:30pm.
