It’s easy to like bees on paper, but harder when they’re in your yard, right? We get it. Those bee stings are no joke. Here’s the thing, though: Honeybees work extremely hard to make the honey we use pretty much every day and are the world’s most important pollinator of food crops. Not to mention, that black and yellow color scheme is pretty trendy right now. Outside of ladybugs, bees could very well be the best bug. But how much do you really know about the lives of bees? We’re laying it all out for you — and we’re making it even more fun by including some bee coloring pages.
Bee coloring pages might seem silly. After all, what colors will you need besides yellow and black? Maybe you don’t “need” any other colors, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use ’em. Coloring is beneficial in so many ways, with one of those being to expand your kids’ imagination. Your little one has plenty of room to pretend when coloring these pages. What will the background look like? What would be an unexpected color for bees? While your kiddos imagine and color, they’re also working on that pencil grip and their hand-eye coordination. Staying seated and coloring inside the lines? That teaches kids self-regulation, which is a skill they’ll need to demonstrate to move up to their next grade level.
Plus, ya know, coloring is fun. And we’ve got more of it! Once your little honeybee finishes these pages, they can buzz right over to our spider coloring pages, octopus coloring pages, airplane coloring pages, fairy coloring pages, and more. We have a plethora of free printables.
Free Bee Coloring Pages
Bee No. 1
We’re certain you already know that bees live in colonies. But did you know that, within those colonies, there are three kinds of bees? There’s the queen bee. Then there are worker bees (females) and drone bees (males). Male bees pretty much only exist to help the queen make more bees. Fun fact: People have always loved bees! In fact, beekeeping dates back 4,500 years. Bees have been around for more than 30 million years!
Bee No. 2
Worker bees, the female bees, do all the heavy lifting. They’re the ones you see buzzing around your flowers. Worker bees typically only live for several weeks, and during their lifetime, they’ll make about one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey. That gives a whole new meaning to “she works hard for the money!” In Greek and Roman philosophy, honey is viewed as a symbol of love, beauty, and fertility.
Bee No. 3
A queen bee lives exponentially longer than her worker bees — around five years. During that time, she’ll lay roughly 2,500 eggs a day. Once she dies, one of the last eggs she laid will end up becoming her “heir” (so to speak). The rest of the colony will choose a new larva to become queen and feed her special food to help her survive and become fertile.
Bee No. 4
Remember all those Renaissance-set stories featuring mead? Mead is made of fermented honey and is the oldest fermented beverage in the world. For the record, we are 100 percent not interested in tasting it. Now, let’s talk about honey. Did you know it’s 25 percent sweet than sugar? And have you wondered how much honey people consume? The average American eats about 1.31 pounds of honey a year. Guess how many bees live in a beehive. The answer is around 50,000!
Bee No. 5
Ever wonder why bees use hexagons to create honeycombs? They’re the most efficient shape to use for honey storage! They hold the maximum amount of honey and require the least amount of wax to build. Did you know honey bees don’t sleep? During their rest time, they don’t move and just conserve their energy for tomorrow.
Bee No. 6
It’s easy to hear the buzzing of a honeybee and grow weary, but try to be thankful, too. After all, the honeybee is the only insect that produces something we humans will eat! It is also the official insect of Maine. Fun fact: Within a single day, a bee will visit about 50 to 100 flowers! What a busy bee! Also, if a bee loses its stinger, unfortunately, it will die.
Bee No. 7
And that buzzing sound? Well, it’s a bee’s wings flapping. Their wings beat roughly 200 times per second. That super-fast fluttering is what creates the buzzing noise. Fun fact: Did you know in ancient Egypt, people would pay their taxes in honey.
Bee No. 8
It’s no wonder worker bees only live a few weeks. Not only do they beat their wings incredibly fast, but they also venture impressively far. During its lifespan, a worker bee will travel distances equivalent to circling the planet one-and-a-half times.
Bee No. 9
They log all those miles by traveling quickly from flower to flower. The average collecting trip consists of about 50 to 100 flowers. So, it’s likely that the same bee buzzing through your garden is hitting your neighbor’s garden, as well as your neighbor’s neighbors’ gardens.
Bee No. 10
That’s a lot of miles to log, but it’s completely necessary. To make just one pound of honey, a colony of bees will fly about 55,000 miles combined. Using all that energy requires getting plenty of rest. However, bees don’t sleep at night. Instead, they return to their hive and remain exceptionally still. They rest so they can build up enough energy for another day’s work.
Bee No. 11
Here’s a hilarious factoid. Bees may have bent legs, but those fuzzy appendages aren’t knees because bees don’t have any. And did you know Egyptians weren’t the only ones that used honey as currency? During 11th century Germany, it was used to make payments and sweeten beer.
Click here to print all of the bee coloring pages at once!
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