Question

The flower nectar contains 70% water, but bees make nectar so that only 17% of water remains in the honey. How many kilograms of nectar bees need to processed until 1 kg of honey is produced?

Answer 1

2.76 kg of nectar

Explanation:

Nectar and honey have two parts - water and sugar.
Nectar has more water (70%) and less sugars (100-70 = 30%).
Honey has less water (17%) and more sugars (100-17 = 83%)

From the question we know that the difference between nectar and honey is the difference in water. The solids are what we are interested in.

Therefore,
Amount of solids in nectar = `100-70 = 30%` or `30/100 = 0.30`
Amount of solids in honey = `100-17 = 83%` or `83/100 = 0.83`

Now, to get 1 kg of honey, the solids have to remain the same.

Suppose, x kg of nectar is needed to make 1 kg of honey. So, for having the solids same we get,
`0.3x = 0.83 xx 1`
solving for x, x = `(0.83 xx 1)/0.3 = 2.76 kg`
OR

Another way to solve is,
1 kg of honey has 83% solids or 0.830 kg (830gm) of solids
and
1 kg of nectar has 30% solids or 0.300 kg (300gm) of solids

Now to get 1 kg of honey, we should have nectar that can provide 0.830 kg of solids
Then,
0.300 kg of solids is got from 1 kg nectar
1 kg solids is got from `1/0.300 kg` nectar
Therefore, 0.83 kg of solids is got from `(1/0.300)xx 0.83 = 2.76kg` nectar