Why does a honey bee bother? It takes millions of bees and thousands of air miles to create every jar of the naturally sweet, health-giving sticky stuff we spread on our toast. Cruising at a top speed of 15 miles an hour, each bee would have to visit two million flowers or fly three times round the world to produce a pound of honey. But given its short, 40-day lifespan, each worker bee can manage to make less than a teaspoon. With around 50,000 bees in an average honey-producing hive, it’s no wonder they are so busy.

The bee sets off on nectar-collecting missions of up to six miles, carrying up to a third of its body weight back to the hive in its stomach. As a favour to nature, it also collects pollen, which is what gives honey its flavour, in baskets on its legs. This mixture of natural sugars (nectar) and enzymes (pollen) forms hexagonal honeycombs, which are dried by the flapping wings of young workers, held together by propolis, a sappy substance collected from trees, and sealed with wax.

The honey evaporates until it is 80 per cent sugar and 18 per cent water - the rest a mixture of minerals, antioxidants, vitamins and proteins. Because of bees’ long-range flying and indiscriminate foraging, clover honey is the only monofloral type to be found in Britain. Acacia, eucalyptus and orange blossom are popular imports, and Manuka honey, made in New Zealand from the flowers of the tea tree, is renowned for its healing and restorative properties.

Until cane sugar became cheaper in the 18th century, honey was civilisation’s chief sweetener, and had been for thousands of years. Palestine was known as the land of milk and honey, and Egyptian tombs have been found with well-preserved jars of honey inside.

We have been able to help ourselves because bees’ highly evolved society is so efficient that a hive can make more than it needs. But contrary to Pooh Bear’s selfish assertion that “bees make honey so that I can eat it”, to the bee there are really two reasons to bother. Honey nurtures their young and sustains them through the winter, so it’s a matter of survival. And they get a buzz out of it.

Harvey McGavin