Bees

Bees are useful insect. 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. Without 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 honeycomb.