the honey sac, a storage tank that holds the nectar until the bee returns to the hive Certain glands secrete enzymes into the sac, and these work to break down starch into smaller chains of sugars and sucrose into its constituent glucose and fructose molecules A few remarkable figures are worth quoting A strong hive contains one mature queen, a few hundred male drones, and some 20,000 female workers For every pound of honey taken to market, eight pounds are used by the hive in its everyday activities The total flight path required for a bee to gather enough nectar for this pound of surplus honey has been estimated at three orbits around the earth The average bee forages within one mile of the hive, makes up to 25 round trips each day, and carries a load of around 0.002 of an ounce, or 0.06 grams — approximately half its weight With its light chassis, a bee would get about 7 million miles to a gallon (3 million km per liter) of honey In a lifetime of gathering, a bee contributes only a small fraction of an ounce of honey to the hive The Advance of the Bee in North America We’re lucky to have a near-contemporary description of the honey bee’s movement across North America In 1832, Washington Irving toured what is now the Oklahoma region and published his observations in A Tour on the Prairies The ninth chapter describes a “Bee-hunt,” the practice of finding honey in the wild by following bees back to their hive It is surprising in what countless swarms the bees have overspread the Far West within but a moderate number of years The Indians consider them the harbinger of the white man, as the buffalo is of the red man; and say that, in proportion as the bee advances, the Indian and buffalo retire We ...gathering, a bee contributes only a small fraction of an ounce of honey to the hive The Advance of the Bee in North America We’re lucky to have a near-contemporary description of the honey... Washington Irving toured what is now the Oklahoma region and published his observations in A Tour on the Prairies The ninth chapter describes a “Bee-hunt,” the practice of finding honey in the wild... following bees back to their hive It is surprising in what countless swarms the bees have overspread the Far West within but a moderate number of years The Indians consider them the harbinger of the white man, as the buffalo is of the red