# What Do Honey Bees Eat?

> What honey bees eat: Nectar and pollen, foraging style, and seasonal shifts in Worldwide wherever flowering plants grow.

- **Species:** Honey Bee (*Apis mellifera*)
- **Conservation status:** Not Evaluated
- **Diet:** Nectar and pollen
- **Habitat:** Worldwide wherever flowering plants grow
- **Lifespan:** Workers ~6 weeks; queens 2–5 years
- **Top speed:** ~28 km/h (17 mph)
- **Canonical HTML:** https://globalanimalguide.org/animals/honey-bee/what-do-honey-bee-eat/
- **Parent profile:** https://globalanimalguide.org/animals/honey-bee/
- **Last reviewed:** 2026-07-16

## Quick answer

The honey bee is a social insect that lives in colonies of tens of thousands, built around a single egg-laying queen. Honey bees pollinate a large share of the crops people rely on, make honey from flower nectar, and communicate the location of food through a "waggle dance." Worker bees live only a few weeks in summer, while a queen can live several years.

## Who should skip this page

Skip this if you need a captive feeding plan from a veterinarian. This page is wild diet, not a pet-care sheet.

## Life in the colony

A honey bee colony is a single tightly organized society. One queen lays all the eggs, thousands of female workers forage, build comb, feed young, and defend the hive, and male drones exist mainly to mate. Tasks shift as a worker ages, from cleaning and nursing inside the hive to foraging outside.

## Help protect the Honey Bee

Even familiar animals lose ground as wild habitat keeps shrinking worldwide.

[Donate to wildlife protection](https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/donate/)

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Source: Global Animal Guide (https://globalanimalguide.org/animals/honey-bee/what-do-honey-bee-eat/). Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0 — free for non-commercial reuse with attribution.