Laravel 5: how to query a pivot table using Eloquent

Is there a way to use Eloquent to query a pivot table without having a model for that pivot table?

Situation: A user can own multiple businesses, and a business can be owned by multiple users. I have the following tables for looking at many-to-many relationships.

| users     | businesses  | business_user |
-------------------------------------------
| id        | id          | business_id   |
| name      | name        | user_id       |
| created_at| created_at  | created_at    |
| updated_at| updated_at  | updated_at    |

      

        
        
        
      

    

My User.php Model

public function businesses()
{
    return $this->belongsToMany('App\Business')->withTimestamps();
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

My Business.php Model

public function users()
{
    return $this->belongsToMany('App\User')->withTimestamps();
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

1- In my controller I am trying to query the business_user (pivot) table to count the number of businesses that have an Auth user id.

select count(*) from business_user where user_id = Auth::user()->id() ;

      

        
        
        
      

    

2- I am trying to query the business_user (pivot) table to get the company name for each row found in the business_user table for that user id.

select business_user.business_id, businesses.name 
  from business_user 
  join businesses 
    on business_user.business_id = businesses.id
 where business_user.user_id     = Auth::user()->id() ;

      

        
        
        
      

    

I would like to query a pivot table with Eloquent, but I cannot get the syntax right. Do I need a model for this business_user table?

Some of you prefer not to use Eloquent at all?

Thank you resume