Honeybees: Nature’s Sweet Workers

Worksheet Description

Honeybees are amazing insects known for their buzzing presence in gardens and fields. These small, striped insects are famous for making something sweet and delicious: honey. They live in colonies, work tirelessly, and play an essential role in pollinating flowers and producing honey.

What Do Honeybees Look Like?

Honeybees are usually yellow and black, with stripes on their bodies. They have six legs and two pairs of wings. You can tell them apart from other bees by their smaller size and their slimmer, more delicate bodies.

Life in a Bee Colony

Honeybees live in large groups called colonies, and each colony has three main types of bees: the queen, worker bees, and drones. The queen bee is the mother of all the bees in the colony. She lays eggs, and her job is to keep the colony going. Worker bees are female bees that do most of the work in the colony. They collect nectar and pollen, build and repair the hive, and take care of the baby bees. Drones are male bees, and their main job is to mate with the queen.

How Do Honeybees Make Honey?

Honeybees make honey from flower nectar. Worker bees collect nectar using their long, tube-like tongues called proboscises. They bring the nectar back to the hive and put it into honeycomb cells. Then, they fan their wings to evaporate the water from the nectar, turning it into thick, sweet honey. The bees seal the honeycomb cells with wax to keep the honey safe.