Activity: The Old Beekeeper

In this selection, an old beekeeper explains his work. Read this story about beekeeping out loud. Then follow the suggestions below.

“It was this way,” began Farmer Brown. “The old hive, from which this swarm came, was no longer large enough to hold all of the bees, so a part of the family chose a new queen and decided to start a new home elsewhere. I could have prevented this swarming by providing a new queen and hive, but I waited too long. I didn’t expect them to swarm so soon.”

“A new queen,” said Hal, “what has the queen to do with the swarming of bees?”

“Bees are the most interesting creatures in the world,” replied Farmer Brown. “I know something of the habits of bees, but there is still much to learn. First of all, the queen is the head of the swarm, and no swarm would leave the hive to found a new home without a queen as leader. Her word is law, and wherever she goes the whole swarm follows.

“Come into the shop and I will show you a new queen which just came through the mail from Ohio. Here she is, and you will notice that she is about four times the size of the common bees, because she has to lay all of the eggs for the whole colony.

“Oh, she is a regular laying machine. Some queens have been known to lay 3,000 eggs in a single day, and as many as 300,000 eggs during their life-time.

“Should the queen die, the bees at once begin to grow a new queen. They build an extra large cell into which they put a bee grub and feed it on the choicest of foods until it grows to queen size.”

Suggestions

Have your students do one or more of the following:

Narrate what you read. (Younger students can have Mom write their narrations down for them.)
Explain how large the queen bee is.
Explain how the queen bee is raised.
Write a story that reflects a queen bee’s life.
Younger students can draw the story.
Read another story about swarms and the queen bee.
Read the poem “How Doth the Little Busy Bee” by Isaac Watts.
Copy the poem onto Drawing and Writing paper and provide an appropriate illustration.
Interested in becoming a beekeeper? This Purdue Extension download will help you get started.

Additional Resources

The Three Bees
More about the queen bee along with her relative size.

The First Book of Bees ~ Free eBook
For an introductory book less than 70 pages long, The First Book of Bees covers a great deal of ground! Wonderful illustrations.

Free Nature Studies: The Honey Bee
Lots of resources here in our free nature studies including a video showing the bee’s lifecycle.