Bee Spit—It’s Not Just for Breakfast Anymore

If you’ve ever spilled honey on the counter, you know how sticky it is! Now scientists have discovered that a surprising combination of flower oil and bee spit—the ingredient necessary for honey—may form the basis for new all-weather adhesives.

It’s a match made in heaven. Bees secrete a sugar from their mouths that is combined with a plant oil, called pollenkitt. This combination becomes a versatile adhesive that enables pollen to stick to the bee’s legs, rain or shine! Pollen is an essential food source for bees, so the Creator equipped them to keep their “groceries” dry on the way back to the colony.

Researchers are studying how this glue stays sticky through changes in humidity, a problem most synthetic adhesives can’t deal with. The oil seems to keep the sugar from drying out or getting too wet.

Nature is filled with marvelous engineering that inspires our best scientists. When we consider that many of these marvels combine materials from two very different kinds of organisms—like bees and flowering plants—we reach a powerful conclusion. An all-wise Engineer, who created the universe for his glory and our good, designed plants and animals to live in harmony from the very beginning.

Article was taken from Answers magazine, July–August, 2019, 21.