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Bees – Lectures by Rudolf Steiner

November 26th 1923

When the worker, having reached maturity flies out to seek flowers or trees and can assume a secure position on them by means of its claws, it then can suck up the honey nectar and collect pollen. It carries the pollen on its body where it has deposited it. There is a special accommodation: the so-called brushes on its hind legs, where the pollen is deposited. But the honey nectar it sucks up with its proboscis. Part of this honey serves as food for its own digestion, but the greatest portion it retains in its "honey stomach”.

The contents of the latter it will regurgitate when it returns to the hive. So when we eat honey, we are in reality eating the regurgitated product of the bee. We need to be clear about this, however; it is a very pure and sweet form of vomit, not the way such products usually are in nature. So, you see, the bee collects what it needs to eat, to store away, or to use in making wax and so on.