50 Fun Bee Facts: Inspire Kids to Save Bees | Free PDFs
If you are a parent or teacher of bee-loving kids, you’ll want to check out these kid-friendly bee facts. Along with favorite bee children’s books and play-based bee activities, these bee facts for kids will share knowledge, spark conversation, and inspire a lifelong love and appreciation of bees.
Fun & Interesting Bee Facts
Nectar has sugar that gives bees lots of energy.
A bee can visit 50 to 100 flowers for one meal.
Some bees live in colonies together. Other bees are solitary, which means they live alone.
Bees can remember a human’s face.
Bees are insects.
A baby bee is called a larva.
Bees have an amazing sense of smell.
Wasps are not bees. Bees are vegetarian and eat pollen. Wasps eat other bugs.
Bees have 5 eyes.
Not all species of bees die if they sting you.
Bees have emotions. They are usually gentle and curious. They can be feisty if they are scared or upset.
Bees can see all the colors except red.
Bees have two stomachs. One is for eating, and one is for storing nectar.
Purple and blue are bees’ favorite colors. Most bees prefer blue or purple flowers because they have the most nectar.
The chemicals in a bee’s stomach start turning the nectar into honey.
In the hive, bees use their wings to dry out the nectar so it can turn into honey.
Honey is what bees eat during the winter.
Bees swallow nectar into their second stomach. This is how they carry it back to their hive.
Beeswax comes from under the bee’s belly. They use this to make their honeycomb and to store honey.
Mason bees use mud to make nests.
Many bees have nests underground. They dig nests or use empty tunnels and burrows.
Carpenter bees live in dead wood.
Bees use the sun as a guide when they travel.
Some types of bees, like honeybees, will make their nests in holes in trees.
In winter, the queen bee is in the middle of the hive, where it is the warmest.
Bees in a colony have three jobs – worker, queen, and drone.
Worker bees are female and care for the hive.
Bees keep each other warm in the winter by huddling together. Worker bees vibrate their bodies to create warmth.
The queen bee is the only bee that lays eggs.
The drone bees are all male, and their only job is to mate.
Bees tell each other information by dancing.
Bumblebee Facts
Bumblebees beat their wings and vibrate their bodies to make flowers release pollen.
Male bumblebees don’t sting.
The biggest bumblebee is the Bombus dahlbomii. The queen can be as big as 4 centimeters.
Bumblebee colonies can be small, with 50 to 500 bees.
Honeybee Facts
Adult bees teach new bees how to make honey
Honeybees live in groups called colonies or hives.
Honeybee colonies are much bigger than bumblebee colonies. A honeybee colony can have 20,000 to 80,000.
A queen bee can live up to 5 years.
If the queen bee dies worker bees will raise a new queen.
Worker bees pick a new larva to be the queen bee. They feed this larva a special “royal jelly” that helps her grow into a queen bee.
Queen bees can lay as many as 2,500 eggs a day.
Worker bees live for about 5 to 6 weeks.
One honeybee will make 1/12 teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.
Honeybees will die if they sting humans because their stinger gets stuck in the skin. They are safe when they sting other bugs because they can pull their stinger back out.
Bee Conservation Facts
The leaves that fall in autumn protect the bees who live underground.
Pesticides, chemicals that kill bugs, are dangerous to bees too.
Planting native flowers helps protect bees.
Resources:
- Attracting Pollinators in Your Garden Using Native Plants
- Regional Planting Guides
- DIY Bee Hive & Bug House
Why Bee are Important
Bees and their honey are a source of food for animals.
Without bees, there is no honey.
Bees pollinate the plants that other bugs and animals need for food and shelter.
Bees pollinate one-third of all food we eat.
Within these 50 bee facts for kids, I hope you found something interesting to teach or inspire a conversation with the bee-loving kid in your life. Teaching early learners about the importance of bees can instill a lifelong commitment to protecting bees and caring for our planet. Learn more about saving bees at The Bee Conservancy.
Hi!
These were very interesting facts. I will use some of them for a neighbourhood project on world bee day. Thank you for sharing!
Wonderful and good luck! Happy I could contribute in a small way 🙂