Take it from the bee scientists. Honey is NOT vomit.

That incongruous belief that “Honey is bee vomit” is resurfacing on a number of YouTube channels, opinion pieces and other Internet posts. It's usually said with great glee: “Honey is bee vomit! It's bee puke! It's bee barf!”

Is it #FakeNews?

We asked noted honey bee guru Eric Mussen, Extension apiculturist emeritus at the University of California, Davis, whose career in bee education spans four decades, to settle the issue. Although he retired in 2014, he keeps active. Last year he completed a term--his sixth--as president of the Western Apicultural Society. He maintains an office in Briggs Hall.

And he continues to answer questions about bees and honey.

“As for the bees and vomit issue, the explanation requires quite a bit of knowledge,” Mussen says. It's about an "expandable pouch called 'the honey stomach' (which we humans do not have) and a valve called the "proventriculus" (which we humans do not have)."

“As most people know, honey begins as a dilute sugar solution secreted by ‘nectaries,' sugar syrup-secreting glands which are located in flowers or in extra-floral nectaries,” Mussen explains. “Pollen is not a natural constituent of nectar.  The nectar is sucked up by honey bees and it passes into an expandable pouch called the ‘honey stomach.'  This is the pre-digestive part of the part of the digestive tract that honey bees use to bring water and nectar to the hive.  In honey bees and other insects, this ‘crop' precedes the portions of the digestive tract used for digesting food.  There is a unique valve between the crop and the ventriculus (midgut), called the ‘proventriculus,' that has rake-like projections that constantly pull particulates, like pollen grains, from the crop contents and push them along for digestion.”

“A nectar-foraging bee,” Mussen points out, “returns to the hive and pumps out the nectar to a receiving bee.  An enzyme is mixed with the crop contents that reduces sucrose (table sugar), a disaccharide normally found in nectar, into two monosaccharides (glucose and fructose) that are the principal sugars in ripened honey.  If the nectar is not immediately used as a water substitute or for diluting thick honey or solid pollen stores to allow swallowing, it is carried to the area in the hive where honey is being processed.  The nectar is passed to processing bees that blend the incoming nectar loads, mix them together, then pump out a bit of solution and hold a small sheet of the syrup in its partially distended mouthparts.  Water evaporates from the surface of the syrup.  The drier solution is drawn back into the crop and mixed with the other contents.”

“Then the film is again exposed to the air.  That process repeats itself until the moisture content of the syrup falls below 20 percent.  Evaporation is influenced significantly by the relative humidity.  Since honey will ferment at moisture contents above 20 percent, it is important to leave the honey with the bees until it can be immediately processed in locations with high humidity.  That honey will seem to be thin.  During the summer in California, the ambient relative humidity is quite low--15 percent or less.  In that case, honey produced in the Central Valley can have a moisture content of 13 to 13.5 percent.  That honey is quite thick.”

As an aside, “pollen grains are likely to be found in honey,” Mussen says. “Wind-blown pollens can fall into flowers that are open faced.  Pollen grains are collected by hairs on the bees' bodies.  They can get onto the mouthparts and become consumed with the nectar.  Nectar-processing bees may have eaten some pollen in the hive before processing the honey.  This is how the pollen grains get into honey.  They do not necessarily get consumed with the fresh nectar.  Physical contaminants of honey have to be quite small, like pollen grains, since the bees ingest all their food by drinking it through a straw-like proboscis with a very small opening at the tip.  Most of the physical contaminants are removed by the proventriculus.”

And here's the point: “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.'

 Which begs the question: Why can't we enjoy honey for what it is, not for what it isn't?

We can. Mark your calendar to attend these two events: the  second annual California Honey Festival on May 5 in downtown Woodland (it's held in partnership with the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center) and the fourth annual UC Davis Bee Symposium: Keeping Bees Healthy (hosted by the Honey and Pollination Center and the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology) on March 3 in the UC Davis Conference Center. The Bee Symposium will feature keynote speaker Thomas Seeley, the Horace White Professor in Biology at Cornell University, New York.

Interested in beekeeping? UC Davis Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño and her lab will teach a number of classes this spring, beginning March 24, at the Harry H.Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis campus.

The schedule and links to the capsule information:

• Planning Ahead for Your First Hives: Saturday, March 24
• Working Your Colonies: Sunday, March 25
• Queen-Rearing Techniques Short Course: Saturday and Sunday, April 21-22 course; Saturday and Sunday, April 28-29 course
• Bee-Breeding Basics: Saturday, June 9
• Varroa Management Strategies: Saturday, June 16

How are the bees doing?

When the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF) meets Jan. 9-13 at the Grand Sierra Resort, Reno, Nev. for its 75th annual American Beekeeping Federation Conference & Tradeshow, the key concern is bee health.

Sadly, colony losses continue to take their toll.

Our nation's honey bee colonies are down slightly for operations with five or more colonies, according to statistics released Aug. 1, 2017 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In its news release, the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service noted that "Honey bee colonies for operations with five or more colonies in the United States on January 1, 2017 totaled 2.62 million colonies, down slightly from January 1, 2016. The number of colonies in the United States on April 1, 2017 was 2.89 million colonies. During 2016, honey bee colonies on January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1 were 2.62 million, 2.80 million, 3.18 million, and 3.03 million colonies, respectively."

Honey bee colony loss (for operations with five or more colonies) amounted to 362,000 colonies or 14 percent. "The number of colonies lost during the quarter of April through June 2017 was 226,000 colonies, or 8 percent," according to the USDA news release. "During the quarter of October through December 2016, colonies lost totaled 502,000  colonies, or 17 percent, the highest of any quarter in 2016. The quarter in 2016 with the lowest number of colonies lost was April through June, with 330,000  colonies lost, or 12 percent."

And again, no surprise: the No. 1 colony stressor was that dreaded varroa mite (Varroa destructor) and the viruses it can transmit. The parasitic mites suck the blood (hemolymph) from both the adults and developing brood, especially drone pupae.

The ABF conference will zero in on the varroa mite at several presentations on Thursday, Jan. 10:

• "Selecting for Behavioral Resistance to Varroa Destructor"--Krispn Given, Apiculture Specialist, Purdue University Department of Entomology, West Lafayette, Ind.
• "RNA Viruses and Varroa Mites: Temporal Variation in Honey Bee Pathogens Influences Patterns of Co-Infection"--Alex Burham, University of Vermont, Burllngton, Va.
• "Engaging Beekeepers with MiteCheck: Implementing a Nationwide Citizen Science Program for Monitoring and Comparing Varroa destructor Infestations"--Rebecca Masterman, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minn.

Overall, the diamond-anniversary conference will focus on educational sessions, social and networking activities "and lots of opportunities to learn about new products and services," according to ABF president Gene Brandi of Los Banos, a bee industry leader for four decades. He currently manages some 2000 colonies in central California with his son.

Morris Weaver of Montgomery, Texas, the 1975-76 ABF president, will deliver the keynote presentation on "The American Beekeeping Federation, Inc.: 75 Years Strong."

Attendees can choose from five track sessions: small scale beekeepers; serious sideliners; package bee and queen breeders; honey producers and packers; and commercial beekeepers. Registration also will take place at the door.

On Saturday, Jan. 13, Amina Harris, director of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, will present two honey-tasting workshops: "Taste and Evaluate Honey: Matching Flowers to Flavors."

This week is truly a gathering of bee scientists and beekeepers. In conjunction with the ABF conference, the American Bee Research Conference will take place Jan. 11-12 in Reno.  Marla Spivak, MacArthur Fellow and Distinguished McKnight University Professor, University of Minnesota, is the keynote speaker.

You may have missed it, but today (Thursday, Oct. 12) is National Farmers' Day.

The day originated back in the 1800s as a way to recognize and thank farmers for all the work they do to feed our nation--and the world.

It's also time to thank a beekeeper.

When beekeeper Kim Flottum of northeast Ohio, the 30-year editor of Bee Culture, addressed the recent Western Apicultural Society's 40th annual conference at UC Davis, he predicted that the nation's 250,000 beekeepers (who manage around 4 million colonies) will turn into a million beekeepers in five years.

A million. We can only hope!

Flottum applauded "the incredible rise of new beekeepers in the last 10 years."

"The urban, surburban and country beekeepers are younger than the norm and we have more women beekeepers than ever," said Flottum, who launched the magazine, BEEKeeping, Your First Three Years, two years ago. "This isn't like the 1970s Green Movement--I'm old enough to remember that. It's got legs! But watch out for an ugly urban disaster like a major beespill or bad honey recall." 

Beekeepers are becoming more and more diverse, specializing in honey production, pollination services and queen bee breeding.  Pollination services and queen bee breeding are the most profitable, Flottum said. Honey, not so much.

"If I'm in beekeeping, pollination services is sure bet," he said. "Beekeepers now get 200 bucks a colony for almond pollination in California. Pollination is more profitable than honey. Bee breeding? Queens can sell for as much as $40 or $50."

"In the United States,  we eat on the average 1.2 pounds a year, but in Canada, it's 2.5 or 2.4 pounds." He lamented that unsafe and/or questionable honey from China floods our nation's supermarkets and is being sold at undercut prices. (Some statistics indicate that a "third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals"--Food Safety News.)

It's important for American beekeepers to label their honey "Made in America" or localize it by city or state, he said. 

Flottum also touched on such issues as honey bee health, nutrition, loss of habitat, poor quality forage, and pesticides.

The varroa mite/virus is the No. 1 problem for beekeepers, he said. "Other stresses include nutrition, nosema, pesticides...All of these can be fixed with money, increased diversity of bee stock, and a move way from both ag and in-hive legal and illegal chemicals."

Meanwhile, thankfully, the appreciation of honey bees seems to be growing. Brought here in 1622 by European colonists in Jamestown, Va., bees now pollinate about one-third of the food we eat.

Happy Farmers' Day. Happy Beekeepers' Day.

(Editor's Note: Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño and her colleagues at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis, teach beekeeping and bee health workshops. See the Niño lab at  http://elninobeelab.ucdavis.edu/. The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center is hosting a two-day course on honey, Nov. 10-11.)

Sarah the Bee Girl stands in front of a cluster of first graders sitting by a six-foot worker bee sculpture in the UC Davis Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven.

Her name is Sarah Red-Laird, and she is here to present an interactive educational program involving bees and beekeeping, honey, beeswax and bee habitat to students from Peregrine School, Davis. It's part of her "Bees and Kids" program, funded by the American Beekeeping Federation's Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees.

She's speaking to them as part of the Western Apicultural Society's 40th annual conference, Sept. 5-8.

The students are super excited.

Holding up fruit after fruit, she asks if they like strawberries, apples, oranges and lemons, all bee-pollinated. They eagerly raise their hands. She tells them that bees are responsible for providing one-third of the food we eat, including fruits, vegetables and nuts (almonds). Our shopping carts would be sparse if there were no bees, she says. She quizzes them about grapes, rice and oats, which are not bee-pollinated.

Then she turns to honey.

"How much honey does a bee make in her lifetime?" she asks. "Is it 1 cup, 1 teaspoon or 1/12th of a teaspoon?  if you think it's one cup, raise your hand." Half a dozen hands shoot up.

"If you think it's one teaspoon, raise your hand." A few more raise their hands.

"If you think it's 1/12th of a teaspoon, raise your hand." One person responds.

"The correct answer," says Sarah the Bee Girl, "is 1/12th of a teaspoon. That's how much a honey bee makes in her lifetime."

"I guessed that!" yells a little girl.

"Did you?" Sarah asks, approvingly. "You're a smartie," she praises.

"We didn't," a boy laments.

Sarah drives home the point with: "That means that honey bees work really, really hard for the honey we eat. For me, I eat it every day."

Sarah continues. "How many flowers does it take the bees to make one pound of honey?" she asks, holding up a jar of honey.

The students respond with answers that range from 99 to 100 to 200 to 1000 to 2000 to 8000 to 1 billion.

"The correct answer is 2 million," she tells them. "it takes 2 million flowers to fill this one jar of honey."

Sarah drives home the point with: "The best thing to do to help bees is to plant flowers. Let's say it all together. what can you do to help bees?

"Plant flowers!" they chorus.

Later she reads a book and then asks them to answer questions about nurse bees, house bees, scout bees, guard bees, queen bees, foragers and drones. Each person who answers the question correctly is adorned with props depicting that bee.

The first graders love it! They gigle, laugh and cheer.

Next they move in small groups to the educational stations where they taste honey, learn about bee habitat and bees wax, and see honey bees and other bees up close.

It's obvious that Sarah loves bees and wants others to love them, too.

Sarah says her love of bees began in Southern Oregon, on the deck of her aunt's cabin, at the end of a country road. She received her degree, with honors, in resource conservation from the University of Montana and did research in Jerry Bromenshenk Honey Bee Lab. She presented her beekeeping findings at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research on "How to Keep 100,000 Girlfriends, the Careful Relationship of a Beekeeper and Her Honey Bees."

Today she's the program director of the American Beekeeping Federation's "Kids and Bees" Program and executive director of Bee Girl, a nonprofit organization: its mission is to inspire and empower communities to conserve bees, their flower and our food system.  She serves as the Oregon director of the Western Apicultural Society, a member of the New York Bee Sanctuary Advisory Board, and the regional representative to the Southern Oregon Beekeepers' Association. She is also a "Mountainsmith Brand Ambeesador."  See her work on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (@sarahBeeGirl). Her hashtag is #loveyourbees.

Among the UC Davis personnel assisting her at the haven were:

• Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology,  UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who caught and released bees with a device that included a magnifying glass
• Staff research associates Bernardo Niño of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr., Honey Bee Research Facility/UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who staffed the beeswax table, where children drew pictures with crayons
• Staff research associate and Charley Nye of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr., Honey Bee Research Facility/UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who staffed the  habitat table, where the children learned about where the bees live.
• Zoe Anderson, a UC Davis undergraduate student majoring in animal biology, assisted with the honey tasting. The youths all agreed they liked Sarah's vetch honey the best.