Honey Bee Background Information

Honey bees are very important. Honey bees are the strongest link in the chain between the people who grow the food and the people who eat the food. Without honey bee pollination, the food we eat could decrease by 1/3rd. Foods such as watermelons, cucumbers, squash, blueberries and strawberries, as well as many others fruits, vegetables and nuts, are all pollinated by honey bees.

When honey bees collect nectar from flowers, they are also providing an important service to humans. Honey bees have fuzzy bodies, which get covered in pollen grains when they land on a flower. At the next flower, some of this pollen will fall off, and more new pollen will attach. This is how many plants get pollinated. Pollination is very important to humans. One-third of our food comes from plants that depend on pollination. In the US, honey bees perform 80% of insect pollination.

Honey bees also offer other services to humans through the products we get from

the honey bee hive. One of the most common is honey, an all-natural sugar that we use for cooking, cosmetics, and for medical purposes. Another well-known hive product is beeswax. Beeswax is very popular for making candles, and is also used in cosmetics. Honey bees make beeswax from honey and pollen, so it's edible.

Honey bees are social bees that live in a colony, or hive, with a single egg-laying queen,

thousands of female worker bees and a few hundred male bees, called drones. The honey bee is the best known bee species because of the honey, wax and pollination services it provides. Honey bees can be kept in a wooden hive and brought to a farm to pollinate crops. People who keep honey bees are called apiarists. Humans have kept bees for thousands of years.

“Buzz” Words

insect worker drone

queen stinger smoker

hive larva

metamorphosis

pupa beeswax

pollination pupa

nectar honey

honeycomb pollen

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As you learn about bees, fill in the table below.

can have are

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Use words or pharses to desrcibe what you learned about bees. Look back at the text for help.

Bees

Name _____________________________ Which is first? Cut and paste the pictures in order of the life cycle of a honey bee.

Pupa

Adult Larva

Egg

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The “Buzz” on the Busy Honey Bee

Honey bees are hardworking little insects. They spend their day making

honey and pollinating flowers that grow into fruit and vegetables that we eat

every day. Honey bees are special because they have two stomachs. One

stomach is for eating and the other stomach is for storing nectar. They

collect nectar from flowers or water and carry it back to their hive. Honey

bees are always busy. So the next time you eat watermelons, apples,

cucumbers, or strawberries make sure you thank a honey bee.

Color the words ….for, the, they

Color the sentence that tells an important job that a honey bee does.

Color one thing that you like to eat from the pollination of a honey bee.

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Name_________________________ (K-1) The “Buzz” on the Busy Honey bee

Directions: Write 2 facts that you learned about Honey bees. Illustrate your writing and color. 1.___________________________________________________________________________

2.__________________________________________________________________________

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The “Buzz” on the Busy Honey bee Did you know that bees are very important to us? Honey bees are hard–working insects.

Honey bees pollinate flowers which grow into the fruit and vegetables that we eat every day.

Some of the fruit and vegetables honeybees pollinate are watermelons, apples, pumpkins,

almonds, cucumbers, squash, blueberries, and strawberries. Almost every bite of food we eat

is from a bee that has pollinated the nut or flower of fruits and vegetables.

Honey bees are amazing creatures. They live in colonies and each bee has its own job to

do. There are three different kinds of bees. The queen bee is the largest bee in the hive and

spends her day laying eggs. Male bees are called drones. Their job is to mate with the queen

bee so she can lay eggs that hatch as larvae, and then they emerge as adult bees. The worker

bees are female bees that care for the queen and larvae, gather pollen and nectar, and build

the honeycomb.

Bees are exciting to watch. They fly from flower to flower tasting nectar and gathering

pollen. Bees create honey from the flower pollen. Honey bees even communicate with each

other by dancing. If you see a bee, you will notice that they are always busy.

(2-3)

The “Buzz” on the Busy Honey Bee Directions: Cite evidence from the text and answer in complete sentences.

1. What is the most important job of a honey bee and why?

______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ 2. Using evidence from the text describe one job of the honey bee.

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3. What are three kinds of bees that live in the hive?

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4. How do bees help farmers?

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5. How are bees related to your daily life?

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*If you were a honey bee what crop would you pollinate and why?

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Below draw a picture of your favorite fruit or vegetable.

What’s the Buzz? What do you know about bees? Write what you know in the space below.

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K-1 Color, Cut and Paste!

3 honey bees flew into the hive. Then 6 more honey bees flew into the hive.

What is the total number of honey bees in the hive?

Write a number sentence about the picture

_______ + _______ = _______

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Name _______________

Show with pictures.

Show with numbers.

Show with words.

Explain your thinking.

If one bee can pollinate 12 flowers in a minute,

how many flowers can 7 bees pollinate in 3 minutes?