A little food for thought during your morning commute … Imagine being on the road all day, making 10 runs, each with 50 to 100 stops. Although it might sound a little grueling to us, it's what bees do every day as they hunt flowers for the nectar they need to make honey.

And their job just gets bigger and bigger by the year as more uses are found for honey.

Although the bees' chief job is pollinating fruit and vegetable crops, food manufacturers have discovered that ''honey is golden.'' ''Just look at products in supermarkets, from honey ham, honey mustard and honey cereals to honey barbecue sauces and honey buns,'' says Bill Mondjack, one of the Lehigh Valley's best-known beekeepers and the owner of Mondjack Apiaries, Whitehall.

''Honey's role in health and nutrition keeps expanding, too,'' observes Dr. Robert Roeshman, an Allentown neurologist who also is a master beekeeper and tends 20 hives as a hobby.