Level 1 of 4 · Ages 5–7 · K–Grade 2
Sprouts — Meet the bees
The three bees, the flowers, and one big family.
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Lesson 1 of 3 · 5 min
The three bees in a family
Every hive is one big family of bees. There are three kinds of bees in it.
The queen is the mother. She lays the eggs — sometimes a thousand in a single day. There is only one queen in each hive.
The workers are the bees you see on flowers. They are all sisters. They do every job: cleaning, guarding, building wax, feeding the babies, and flying out for food.
The drones are the few big, fuzzy, slow bees. In summer there are a few hundred of them. In autumn, the workers send most of them away for winter.
Look for this
Next time you see a bee on a flower, you are looking at a worker — a sister bee out on a food trip for her family.
Lesson 2 of 3 · 5 min
Why bees visit flowers
Bees visit flowers for two things: sweet nectar for energy, and pollen — the yellow dust — for protein to feed the babies.
When a bee crawls into a flower, pollen sticks to the fuzzy hairs on her body. She carries some to the next flower. That is called pollination.
Pollination is how flowers turn into apples, berries, pumpkins and seeds. Without bees and other pollinators, our tables would look very empty.
Look for this
Name three foods on your table this week that a bee helped grow. Apples? Blueberries? Cucumbers? Bees helped almost all of them.
Lesson 3 of 3 · 5 min
A hive is one family
Inside a wooden hive box live thousands of bees — often more bees than people in a whole town, all in one box.
They work together like one animal. They fan their wings to keep the nursery warm, exactly like a heater set to body temperature.
The wax cells they build hold everything: baby bees in some cells, pollen and honey in others. It is a pantry, a nursery and a house all in one.
Look for this
Watch the front door of a hive sometime. Bees leaving with empty legs are going out for food. Bees landing with yellow blobs on their legs are coming home with pollen.
The Junior 3H read
Mark reads a hive by asking three questions: are the bees Happy, are they Healthy, are they Heavy? Sprouts learn the small version — with a grown-up, from outside the hive.
Happy
Watch the door. Calm bees coming and going? The hive sounds steady, not angry?
Healthy
Clean, busy bees? No sad piles of dead bees in front?
Heavy
A grown-up gently tips the box. Does it feel full, like a full jug?
Happy, Healthy, Heavy — the three Hs. A colony that is all three will get through winter on its own honey, with bees to spare in spring.
The check · 4 questions · pass at 4
Show what you know
1. Which bee lays all the eggs?
2. What do bees carry from flower to flower?
3. How many bees can live in one hive box?
4. What does Heavy mean in the 3H way?
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