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Instantly access From Seed to Plant plus over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids.

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Read with Chimey: National Geographic Kids- Seed to Plant read aloud

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A read aloud of "Plant Secrets" by Emily Goodman

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Very Easy Parts Of Plant Project using Clay // Parts of plant and their functions.

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6 Easy Paper Flowers | Flower Making | DIY

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I Want To Be A Farmer - Kids Dream Job - Can You Imagine That?

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Text Features Chart

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Bees for Kids | Learn about Honey Bees, Pollination, Beekeeping for Kids | 15 facts about BEES!

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What You'd See If You Could Walk Into a Beehive

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A Beekeeper's Life | Weirdest, Bestest, Truest

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How To Make Easy Paper Bee | 3D paper bee with a heart

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Bee and Honeycomb Craft | Fun Paper Crafts for Kids

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Honey bee ( Apis mellifera)
Also known as the European Honey Bee or Western Honey Bee

What they look like: Honey bee is a widely distributed flying insect know for its ability to collect nectar from flowers and produce honey. Honey bees (right) are mustard yellow and brown. They have stocky bodies that are covered with many hairs to which pollen adheres.

The honey bee's primary value is as a pollinator of crops.

Where they live:
The most commonly recognized honey bee species, Apis mellifera, is native to Africa and Europe.

Honey bees are not native to the Americas but were introduced by European settlers. The first introductions are believed to have occurred in the early to mid 1600s by English and Spanish settlers.

What they eat: Honey bees harvest nectar and pollen from flowering plants. They are not attracted to meats like the yellowjackets that show up at picnics.

Behavior:

Honey bees are social insects that live in large colonies. The queen bee, drones and worker bees all have specific tasks to help support the colony. The queen bee lays hundreds of eggs. The male drones' main function is to be ready to fertilize a receptive queen. Worker bees do all the different tasks needed to operate and maintain the hive.

Reproduction:

The queen bee lays all of the eggs in a colony. At the height of the season, she may lay over 2,500 eggs per day!

The queen fertilizes each egg as it is being laid. The queen occasionally will not fertilize an egg. These non-fertilized eggs develop into male drones.

Did you know?

Bees have 5 eyes and 6 legs.

Honey bees harvest nectar and pollen from flowering plants.

Male bees in the hive are called drones and they do not have a stinger.

Worker bees are females. They do all the different tasks needed to operate and maintain the hive.

Honey bees live in large groups called colonies.

An average beehive can hold around 50,000 bees.

Honey bee collecting nectar. photo by Tim Knight

More information:
Bee and Wasp Stings
Honey bee information Site

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NatureMapping is a hands-on environmental science and education program linking kids, communities and professionals.

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Honeybees live in colonies with one queen running the whole hive. Worker honeybees are all females and are the only bees most people ever see flying around outside of the hive. They forage for food, build the honeycombs, and protect the hive. Many species still occur in the wild, but honeybees are disappearing from hives due to colony collapse disorder. Scientists are not sure what is causing this collapse. Honeybees are important pollinators for flowers, fruits, and vegetables. They live on stored honey and pollen all winter and cluster into a ball to conserve warmth. All honeybees are social and cooperative insects. Members of the hive are divided into three types. Workers forage for food (pollen and nectar from flowers), build and protect the hive, clean, and circulate air by beating their wings. The queen’s job is simple—she lays the eggs that will spawn the hive’s next generation of bees. There is usually only a single queen in a hive. If the queen dies, workers will create a new queen by feeding one of the worker females a special food called “royal jelly.” This elixir enables the worker to develop into a fertile queen. Queens regulate the hive’s activities by producing chemicals that guide the behavior of the other bees. Male bees are called drones—the third class of honeybee. Several hundred drones live in each hive during the spring and summer, but they are expelled for the winter months when the hive goes into a lean survival mode.

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How Do Plant Seeds Travel? | Spring is Here! | SciShow Kids

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Made Possible by... Bats (U.S. National Park Service)

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Science Trek
Bats play an important role in our ecosystem. They help pollinate plants so we have food. They eat insects so bugs do not overwhelm us. But 25 percent of all bat species are threatened with extinction. Find out more about bats on this month's Science Trek. Host Joan Cartan-Hansen and her guests, Rita Dixon and Jesse Barber, answer students' questions about bats.

Aired: 09/15/14

Rating: TV-G

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Science Trek Bats play an important role in our ecosystem. They help pollinate plants so we have food. They eat insects so bugs do not overwhelm us. But 25 percent of all bat species are threatened with extinction. Find out more about bats on this month's Science Trek.

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Where does Chocolate come from - The Pollination of Cocoa Trees