第7章 Lesson 7: The Story of Honey

Honey is made by bees. They make honey for wintertime when flowers are not blooming and nectar is not available. Lucky for us, there are so many bees to make honey that there is plenty for us, too.

Honeybees live and work together in colonies. A colony of honeybees includes a queen bee, drone bees, and worker bees. The queen is the largest bee in the colony, and she lays all the eggs. The drones help the queen make eggs.

Worker bees are the smallest bees. One colony can have as many as 60000; worker bees. Their job is to collect nectar from flowers to make honey. They also make the honeycomb from beeswax to store the honey. Drones live for about eight weeks and worker bees live for about five or six weeks. A queen bee may live up to five years.

There are many kinds of honey and they taste different, depending on the kind of flowers the bees take the nectar from. The average worker bee makes only about 1/10 of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime! A bee visits 50 to 150 flowers on one trip. To make half a kilogram of honeybees must visit two million flowers and fly over forty kilometres. Half a kilogram of honey is what 300 bees can make in their lifetime!

It takes a lot of work to make honey, but it tastes so good!

I. Word List

nectar: a sugary substance made by plants and turned into honey by bees

plenty: a lot, enough for everyone

colony: a large group of insects

store: to save something for later

II. Complete the chart about bees.

The Queen Bee

Number: ________________ Job: ________________

Lifespan: up to ________________

Drone Bee

Job: ________________ Lifespan: ________________

Worker Bee

Number: as many as ________________ Jobs: ________________

Lifespan: ________________

III. Circle the sentences that are true.

1. Worker bees help make eggs. 4. Bees store honey for later.

2. The queen lives for five weeks. 5. There is only one queen bee.

3. Bees collect nectar. 6. The queen bee makes honey.

IV. Answer the following questions.

1. Do you like honey? Why or why not?

___________________________________________________________.

2. Honey is sweet. What sweet foods do you like?

___________________________________________________________.

3. Would you rather be a queen bee, a drone bee, or a worker bee? Why?

___________________________________________________________.

4. Bees live in a home called a hive. Have you ever seen a hive?

___________________________________________________________.

5. How do you think worker bees got their name?

___________________________________________________________.