Beekeeper extracting honey. 19th-century artwork of a beekeeper using machinery to extract honey from honeycombs from a beehive. Bees collect nectar from a wide range of flowering plants, bringing it back to their hive to store it and form honey. The honey is used as food by bee larva, and is also collected by beekeepers for human consumption. The most commonly domesticated bee is the common honey bee (Apis mellifera). This wood engraving dates from circa 1897.