Honey in a Hive

Honey in a Hive

In spring and summer, this meadow is full of sweet-smelling flowers. Listen! Do you hear a buzzing sound? It comes from the rapidly beating wings of many busy bees.

They are busy gathering nectar, the sweet liquid inside flowers, to make into honey. They are gathering pollen, the yellow powder in a flower, to feed their queen and all her young bees.

Bees live in hives filled with honeycombs that they build with beeswax from their bodies. In every beehive there are thousands of bees and one queen, who is much bigger than any of the other bees. She doesn't gather nectar or pollen or do any work, Her job is to lay eggs that will become new bees.

The queen bee leaves her home to fly high in the sky and mate with many male bees, called drones. Drones don't do any work, either. All they do is mate with the queen so she can lay thousands of eggs. As soon as they have mated with her, they die.

Most bees that hatch inside a hive are worker bees, because there is a lot of work to be done making honey. And workers do all the work not the drones, not the queen. All workers are female, but they don't mate or lay eggs. They gather food, guard and clean the hive, make honey, and feed their queen and her newly hatched bees. The food bees eat is honey made from nectar.