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🐝 Honey Bee Digestive System and Nutritional Physiology

A cutaway 3D model of a worker bee's gut, showing how nectar is stored in the honey crop, pollen is filtered by the proventriculus, and nutrients are absorbed in the midgut.

Entomology & Insect Behaviour3DModerate60 FPS

A cutaway 3D model of a worker bee's gut showing how nectar is stored in the honey crop, pollen is filtered out by the proventriculus, and nutrients are absorbed as material moves through the midgut and hindgut.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Nectar particles largely cycle inside the honey crop for storage, while pollen grains pass through the proventriculus valve into the midgut, where they shrink and fade as enzymes digest them and nutrients are absorbed.

🎮 How to Use

Adjust nectar concentration to swell the honey crop, raise pollen protein load to feed more grains into the midgut, and toggle the proventriculus filter to see nectar and pollen mix unfiltered instead of being separated.

💡 Did You Know?

Only a small share of nectar a forager collects is ever digested by that bee — most is regurgitated to nestmates or ripened into honey, which is why the honey crop is often nicknamed the "honey stomach."

⚙ Under the hood

An interactive 3D cutaway of a worker bee's gut built from a custom variable-radius Three.js tube, where instanced nectar and pollen particles flow, cycle in the honey crop, get filtered by the proventriculus, and shrink as they're digested in the midgut.

bee anatomydigestionnutritionphysiologypollennectar

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install