Bees

    Bees are useful insects. There are about 20,000 kinds of bees, but only honeybees make honey.

     Honeybees live in  groups called colonies. Each colony has one female queen bee, tens  of thousands  of worker bees,  and a few hundred males, or drones. Honeybees   live in hives. Inside their hive,   the bees make a honeycomb of  wax. The honeycomb   is a kind of bee apartment building,  full of six-sided   rooms  in which  the bees raise young   and store food.

     The queen bee lays thousands of eggs. Worm like larvae  hatch from the eggs. Each larva becomes a pupa,   which looks partly like a larva and partly like an adult bee. The pupa then becomes  an adult bee.  Worker bees feed the young,   clean and guard the hive;  and fly to and from  flowers.  They collect tiny grains of pollen  and a sweet liquid  called nectar for food. The pollen is food for young   bees. Worker bees use the nectar to make honey.  With­ out bees bringing pollen from flower to  flower, many plants could not make seeds.

    Queen bees and  worker bees  have stings. Workers   use their  stings  to  defend themselves and their hive.   A queen    uses their stings to kill other  queens.

    Most other kinds   of bees live alone instead of in  a colony. These bees make  tunnels in wood or in the ground. The queen makes  her own nest.

     People 'admire bees  for their  busy ways. People called beekeepers  keep bees for honey and  for the beeswax the bees use to build their honeycombs.

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