Bees
Thanks for joining us!
This episode was written by Jean and voiced by Kara and T.
Episode art was drawn by Jean.
It was originally released in August 2024.
— We love these books about bees —
Click on each photo for a link to the book
— Color in our bee printable —
Bee Chant —
“Here is the bee hive but where are the bees?
Hidden inside where nobody sees!
Watch and you’ll see them come out of the hive!
One, two three four five! Buzzzzzzz!”
How does beekeeping work?
This chart of bee-friendly flowers is available on Etsy.
How Doth the Little Busy Bee
by Isaac Watts
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
(this is an excerpt, see the full poem here)
— Bees Episode Summary —
A bee’s head has so many cool parts —
Bees have a probosicis – a long tube-like part that can reach down into the center of the flower where the nectar is made.
They also have two large eyes that are compound eyes. Unlike people eyes, bee’s eyes have many lenses that take in a bunch of points of light. So they see the world with flickering light, and that helps bees to see a wide area around them.
The mandible is used for chewing or breaking down honey.
They have two antennae that stick out from the top of their head. Their tiny hairs can feel the vibrations of sound and can smell things.
The thorax is the middle of a bee’s three sections —
A bee’s wings come out of the thorax. There are actually two front wings and two back wings. The buzzing sounds is made by the wings of the bee! The wings are moving up and down so fast that they buzz, like a motor.
Their legs also come out of the thorax. Like all insects, bees have 6 legs.
The front legs of the bee have tiny hairs that they use to comb their antennae. The back legs have tiny sacs which can hold pollen.
Bees are pollinators! —
Bees travel from flower to flower looking for the nectar and pollen.
Flowers make a sweet liquid within them called nectar which bees like to eat (using their proboscis, remember?).
And flowers also make pollen, which is like a powder, light and fluffy.
Because a bee has hairy legs and bodies, the pollen from the flower sticks to it.
When the bee moves on to the next flower, some of the pollen comes off and sticks to the new flower. And when pollen from one plant mixes with another plant, they can make a NEW plant. That is called pollination.
So, bees are so important for our planet. Because bees help plants pollinate, more plants and flowers grow, more fruits and vegetables, and more clean air.
There are many different kinds of bees —
We often of bees as yellow and black. But bees around the world can come in other colors, such as orange, blue, red, green or all black.
They can be different sizes, as tiny as your fingernail or as big as a thumb.
There are many kinds of bees who live all over the planet Earth (except Antarctica, where it is too cold).
There are carpenter bees, who eat and make nests in the wood. Leaf cutter bees live alone and make nests in twigs and line their nest with cut leaves.
The bees we see the most in our neighborhood are bumblebees and honeybees. Bumble bees are those large, round, fuzzy looking bees who seem to bounce from flower to flower. They are covered in soft hair and look striped in black and yellow.
Thank you honeybees! —
Honeybees live in a group called a colony.
They make a place to live called a hive. A hive is made of wax called honeycomb.
The bees who live in the hive all have jobs to do. The most important bee is the queen bee. She is usually the largest bee and she lays all the eggs that grow into baby bees. She is the boss!
Some bees just take care of protecting the queen. They are called drones, and drones are all males.
There are worker bees, and worker bees are all females. They have many jobs. They keep the hive clean and fixed up. They protect the hive from intruders. Some worker bees feed the baby bees. And worker bees go from flower to flower to collect nectar and pollen. And they are known for their waggle dance! When a bee finds a good source of food they do a dance to tell other worker bees where to find it. When a bee finds nectar, she brings it back to the hive, and it is made into honey.
Honeybees make honey! They turn the nectar into honey, and store that honey in the honeycomb. And honey can taste different depending on the kind of flowers the bees visited.
To collect honey, beekeepers wear a suit with a special hat & net to protect their face and use smoke to calm the bees.