Nectar is a sweet liquid that flowers produce to attract bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators. When these animals visit flowers to drink the nectar, pollen sticks to their bodies and gets carried to other flowers, helping plants reproduce. Without nectar, many plants couldn't make seeds or fruit, and without those plants, entire ecosystems would struggle.

Bees turn nectar into honey by gathering it from thousands of flowers, bringing it back to their hive, and processing it through their bodies. A single bee might visit 50 to 100 flowers on one trip, collecting tiny drops of nectar in a special stomach. Different flowers produce different nectars: orange blossoms make citrusy honey, while clover flowers make mild, sweet honey.

The word also describes anything especially delicious or delightful. You might say that fresh lemonade on a hot day tastes like nectar, or that your favorite song sounds like nectar to your ears. In Greek mythology, nectar was the drink of the gods on Mount Olympus, which gives you a sense of how people have always thought of nectar as something extraordinarily sweet and precious.