Honey bees make honey from the sweet nectar of flowers. A bee carries nectar home in a body part called the crop. It does not digest that nectar on the way. Bees fan their wings to dry nectar into honey.

Worker bees build the wax cells where the queen lays eggs and where bees store honey. Honey is food for the bees. In the cold months, a honey bee colony lives on the honey it stored. In winter, honey bees huddle together to stay warm.

A honey bee hive has one queen. The queen is the mother who lays the eggs. A queen honey bee can lay 1,500 to 2,000 eggs in one day. A queen honey bee usually lives two to four years. Some live up to five.

A worker honey bee takes 21 days to grow from an egg to an adult. A queen takes 16 days and a drone takes 24. Most bees in a hive are workers. Workers are all girls. Workers do almost all of the work in the hive.

Bumblebees do not die after they sting, but honey bee workers do. Bees that live alone rarely sting. A bee sting hurts, but for most people it is not dangerous. People who are allergic to the venom can be in danger.

Bumblebee queens that lived through the winter come out in spring. They start new colonies. A bumblebee colony lasts for just one summer, and then almost all of its bees die. As of November 2026, there are about 20,000 kinds of bees in the world.

Words to know

• crop: nectar carrier
• workers: girl bees