honey

Honey is bee barf. It's one of the oldest sweeteners used by man. Ancient Egyptians valued it highly for its medicinal and healing properties. Honey is made when honeybees collect the nectar from plants. The bees then modify the nectar and store it in a honeycomb.

Bees collect nectar from flowers and store it in "honey stomachs," separate from their true stomachs. When they return to the hive, they regurgitate the nectar and either contact other worker bees for more processing or dump it directly into the honeycomb. The bees then beat their tiny mighty wings to fan air through the hive to evaporate excess water from the honey. Finally, they cover honeycomb cells with wax to save the honey for whenever they get hungry.

It may be disgusting to think about thousands of honey bees lining up and regurgitate together to make honey, but humans have harvested bee barf and eaten it for thousands of years. Incidentally, honey is the only insect-created food that humans can eat.