Next Time You See a Bee

BY EMILY MORGAN

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BY EMILY MORGAN

Arlington, Virginia

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Morgan, Emily R. (Emily Rachel), 1973- author.
Title: Next time you see a bee / by Emily Morgan.
Description: Arlington, VA : National Science Teachers Association, [2019] |

Series: Next time you see | Audience: K to grade 3.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018048636 (print) | LCCN 2018051531 (ebook) | ISBN

9781681406534 (e-book) | ISBN 9781681406510 (print) | ISBN 9781681406527
(library binding)
Subjects: LCSH: Bees--Juvenile literature. | Pollination by bees--Juvenile
literature.
Classification: LCC QL565.2 (ebook) | LCC QL565.2 .M6684 2019 (print) | DDC
595.79/9--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018048636

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To Clay Bolt for introducing me and countless others to
the beauty and importance of our native bees.

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“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we
find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”

—John Muir

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A Note to Parents and Teachers

he books in this series are intended to be read with
children after they have had some experience with
the featured objects or phenomena. For example,
go outside on a warm, sunny day with your child or students
and find a patch of flowers. Watch the bees as they fly from
flower to flower. Choose one bee to follow with your eyes,
and watch it carefully. Take photos or slow-motion videos of
it. Talk with your child or students about what you observe,
and share what you wonder. Why is the bee visiting these
flowers? Is there any kind of pattern to the way it moves?
What is that yellow stuff sticking to its body?
After you have had some experiences observing these
fascinating insects, read this book together. Take time to pause
and share your learnings and wonderings with each other. You
will find that new learnings often lead to more questions.
The Next Time You See books are not meant to present
facts to be memorized. They are written to inspire a sense
of wonder about ordinary objects or phenomena and foster
a desire to learn more about the natural world. Children
might initially be afraid of bees. However, when they learn
how important bees are to humans and the planet, their
fear will hopefully develop into appreciation. My wish is that
after reading this book, you and your child or students feel a
sense of wonder the next time you see a bee.

—Emily Morgan

Safety Note: Teachers, be sure to check with your school nurse about bee-sting allergies and how
to deal with them before observing bees. Bee allergies are uncommon and usually associated with
honeybees. Bees are unlikely to sting while foraging unless you grab them. However, bee allergies can
be life-threatening, so it is important to know if any of your students are allergic and take precautions.

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Next time you see a bee,
stop and watch it for a while.
Stay still and follow it with
your eyes.

What colors do you
see on its body?
Can you see its wings?
Can you find its eyes?
Can you count its legs?
Listen carefully.
Is it making a sound?
How would you describe
the way the bee moves?
What do you think
it might be doing?

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8
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Bees are some of the most
important and fascinating
insects on Earth. They can be
found almost anywhere—from
farms to deserts to cities to
your own backyard.

The daily activities of these tiny
animals affect our lives in a BIG
way. Have you ever wondered
how such small, common
insects can be so important?

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Pollination! Bees spend their days flying from
flower to flower. As they dart among the
blossoms, the insects unknowingly carry out the
process of pollination. Pollination allows plants to
produce fruit, seeds, and eventually more plants.
The remarkable role bees play in pollination
makes them vital to our planet.

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Bees have no idea how important they are to 11
the plants they visit. The insects travel to flowers
simply to gather their food. They eat nectar and
pollen produced by the flowers, and they also feed
these substances to their young. Nectar is a sweet
liquid and pollen is a sticky powder.

If you look near the center of a flower, you can often
see pollen. It is usually yellow but can also be white,
brown, pink, and many other colors. If you touch the
pollen with your finger, you can feel the sticky grains.

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Pollen is an extraordinary substance. When the
powder is moved from one flower to other flowers
of the same kind during the process of pollination,
it makes it possible for these flowers to produce
fruit or seeds.

Most plants need help moving their pollen from
flower to flower. The wind can blow the pollen of
certain plants to other flowers. But most flowering
plants rely on animals like bees to transport their
pollen. These animals are called pollinators.

Have you ever noticed that when you breathe
out on a cold day, your breath instantly becomes
visible? That’s because the invisible water
vapor in your warm breath quickly cools and
condenses into tiny liquid water droplets—your
very own cloud!

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Over time, pollinators and flowers have 13
developed a special relationship in which they
depend on each other. Pollinators need flowers
for food, and flowers need pollinators to spread
their pollen. In addition to bees, several other
kinds of animals pollinate plants, including
butterflies, moths, wasps, flies, beetles, birds, and
bats. But none of these are as prolific a pollinator
as the bee.

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Bees’ bodies
are perfect for
pollination. Two large
compound eyes and
three simple eyes help
the insects find flowers. Two
pairs of wings allow them to fly and hover as they
move from flower to flower. Six legs help them
perch on or grab hold of a flower. Two antennae
let them sense their surroundings. And one
exceptional feature that makes them especially
good pollinators is that the bodies of most bees
are covered with tiny, feathery hairs. Pollen sticks
to these hairs and travels with the bees from
flower to flower. Some
bees even have pollen
baskets (small, curved
surfaces on their back
legs) where they can
carry the pollen.

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Bees pollinate many plants that then bear
things we eat: apples, tomatoes, lemons, limes,
blueberries, cherries, almonds, pumpkins,
watermelons, blackberries, pears, apricots,
peaches, avocados, cucumbers, sunflower seeds …
the list goes on and on. Next time you enjoy one of
these foods, you can thank bees!

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more information, go to www.nsta.org/permissions. When most people think of
.org/store/product_detail.aspx?id=10.2505/9781681406510 bees, they think of insects
with black and yellow stripes
that produce honey and live
in hives. While honeybees fit
this description, many other
types of bees do not. Most
bees do not make honey
or live in hives. And bees
come in a variety of colors—
from red to blue to metallic
green! There are more than
20,000 species of bees in the
world. Some are as large as a
quarter and many are smaller
than a grain of rice. Here is
just a small sampling of the
world’s wide variety of bee
species. What similarities and
differences do you notice?

17

The honeybees we are so familiar with today are
not native to North America. Settlers from Europe
brought them across the ocean on ships to make
honey and beeswax. Most honeybees in North
America are domesticated. That means beekeepers
raise them in hives and have some control over
where they go and what they pollinate. Large
orchards and farms bring in truckloads of
honeybee hives to make their crops produce as
much fruit as possible.

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There are more than 4,000 species of wild bees 19
in North America that pollinate right alongside
honeybees. We call these native bees because
they are a natural part of North America’s
ecosystems, and they have been pollinating plants
here long before the honeybees arrived. Once
you start looking for these insects, you will notice
them more and more. You will see their beautiful
colors and range of shapes and sizes.

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Most native bees nest alone rather than in colonies,
so they are sometimes called solitary bees. You
might see solitary bees flying in and out of holes
in a wall, in wood, or in the ground. These holes
are where they lay their eggs. Some solitary bees
make nests for their eggs using leaves or mud. The
insects go back and forth between flowers and the
nests, collecting and depositing pollen and nectar
for their young to eat when they hatch.

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Honeybees are efficient pollinators, but they
are unable to pollinate certain plants. Take, for
example, the tomato plant. The pollen inside of a
tomato flower does not simply fall off as with many
other flowers. Instead, the flower has to release the
pollen. A bumblebee has a special trick to make
this happen—a process called buzz-pollination. The
bee unhinges its wings, grabs onto the flower, and
buzzes. The vibration of the buzz causes the pollen
to burst out of the flower. Isn’t that amazing?

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If you want to observe bees, find a patch of
flowers on a warm, sunny day. Search for bees
flying quickly from bloom to bloom. Watch them
land on the flowers and put their heads inside to
get to the nectar. Look closely to see if you can
notice any pollen sticking to their bodies.

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Some people get nervous around bees because
they are afraid of being stung, but most bees
do not sting. While it is true that honeybees can
sting, most wild bee species are reluctant to do
so, and male bees don’t even have stingers! If you
give bees enough space, they will not bother you.

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Scientists have noticed that bee populations have
been declining in recent years. In some alarming
instances, entire hives of honeybees have died
out suddenly. Scientists call this colony collapse
disorder. Scientists think that it might result from

a combination of
factors—habitat
loss, disease, poor
nutrition, intensive
farming, stress,
and pesticides.
These factors have
put native bees in
trouble, as well.
In 2017, the rusty
patched bumblebee
was listed as endangered under the Endangered
Species Act. This once-abundant native bee is now
on the brink of extinction.

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Bees are considered a keystone species, which
means that their activities and populations influence
a great number of living things in their ecosystems.
The decline in bee populations does not just affect
the plants that bees pollinate. It also affects the
animals that eat those plants and the animals that
eat those animals and so on. The decline in bees has
a huge impact on humans because these insects
pollinate so many of the plants we grow and eat.
People are becoming more aware of the importance
of bees and why we need to protect them.

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The good news is that anyone can help bees! You
can make a huge difference for bees—no matter
where you live. You can provide food for bees by
planting bee-friendly flowers, being sure to keep
them pesticide-free.

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You can also provide nesting areas for native bees
by using paper tubes to build a bee house where
they can lay their eggs.

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So, the next time you see a bee,
remember that as it zips from
flower to flower to find food,
it is doing something quite
extraordinary for those plants
and for you! It is unknowingly
making it possible for plants
to produce fruits and seeds …
many of which are foods you
eat. It is sometimes hard to
believe that something so small
can be so important. But bees
are key to keeping our planet
and ourselves healthy and
nourished. Isn’t that remarkable?

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About the Photos

Central bumblebee Common eastern bumblebee Black-tailed bumblebee
(Clay Bolt) (Clay Bolt) (Clay Bolt)

Mining bee Holding pollen Butterfly pollinator
(Clay Bolt) (Clay Bolt) (Shutterstock)
Bird pollinator
(Shutterstock) Honeybee with pollen baskets Long-horned bee
(Clay Bolt) (Clay Bolt)

Long-horned bee covered in pollen Various bee species
(Clay Bolt) (Clay Bolt)

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Honeybees buzzing around hives Halictus sweat bee (left) and metallic green bee (right) Leafcutter bee carrying leaf to line her nest
(Shutterstock) (Clay Bolt) (Clay Bolt)

Bee in greenhouse Observing bees A group watching bees
(Clay Bolt) (Tom Uhlman) (Tom Uhlman)

Rusty patched bumblebee Sanderson’s bumblebee Planting bee-friendly flowers
(Clay Bolt) (Clay Bolt) (Tom Uhlman)

Creating a bee house Mining bee feeding on a flower Using the Bumble Bee Watch app
(Tom Uhlman) (Clay Bolt) (Tom Uhlman)

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Activities to Encourage a
Sense of Wonder About bees

v Help native bees by planting native plants, a food source for the insects, in your yard or
schoolyard. You can find out what plants are native to your area by finding your region
or entering your zip code on the Xerces Society website (see the Websites section).

v Be sure not to use pesticides when gardening or growing food.

v Join the Bumble Bee Watch program, and use its app to photograph, identify, and
submit data about bumblebees in your area (see the Websites section).

v Participate in the Great Sunflower Project by growing lemon queen sunflowers,
observing the pollinators, and sharing your observations (see the Websites section).

v Make or buy a nesting box for native bees.

v Get a better look at how bees pollinate by using
a slow-motion video app on a smartphone or tablet.

Websites

Bumble Bee Watch
www.bumblebeewatch.org

The Great Sunflower Project
www.greatsunflower.org

Pollinator Partnership Guides to Selecting Plants for Pollinators
http://pollinator.org/guides

Xerces Society Pollinator Plant Lists
https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/plant-lists

References

Embry, P. 2018. Our native bees: North America’s endangered pollinators and the fight to
save them. Portland, OR: Timber Press.

Moisset, B., and S. Buchmann. 2015. Bee basics: An introduction to our native bees.
Washington, DC: USDA Pollinator Partnership.

Wilson, J. S., and O. Messinger Carril. 2015. The bees in your backyard: A guide to North
America’s bees. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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This book will help kids understand why there’s so much buzz about bees. Next PB329X9
Time You See a Bee reveals the big impact these little insects have on the world. ISBN: 978-1-68140-651-0
It explains how bees pollinate flowers as they zip from bloom to bloom, allowing
the flowers to produce delicious foods such as apples, almonds, and peaches. It US $12.95 • CAD $16.95
describes the amazing physical features that make bees top-notch pollinators.
The book also introduces readers to the wide variety of North America’s native 5 12 95
bee species, discusses why bees are threatened, and shares what readers can
do to help. By reading Next Time You See a Bee, kids can learn to observe bees
without fear—and make a beeline to help protect bees for the good of us all.

nnn

Awaken a sense of wonder in a child with the Next Time You See series from NSTA
Kids. The books inspire elementary-age children to experience the enchantment
of everyday phenomena such as clouds, maple seeds, Moon phases, pill bugs,
fireflies, seashells, and sunsets. Free supplementary activities are available on the
NSTA website.
Especially designed to be experienced with an adult—be it a parent, teacher, or
friend—Next Time You See books serve as a reminder that you don’t have to look
far to find something remarkable in nature.

Grades K–5

Lexile® measure: 940L

9 781681 406510

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