Helen

the Honey Bee

Helen is a honey bee who lives in Tootie’s backyard all year.

Helen is a worker bee who buzzes around the bushes and flowers in Tootie’s backyard. Tootie was afraid of Helen, but Grandma explained that Helen is important to the Louisiana ecosystem. As she gathers pollen and nectar, she helps flowers and plants around the yard grow.

You can identify Helen by her small size and her yellow and black coloration. She’s most likely to be confused with a bumblebee, carpenter bee, or mining bee.

Helen’s Home

Helen and her family live in what is called a colony or a hive. She lives with thousands of other honey bees, where they are working to build a honeycomb for the queen.

The queen bee of the hive produces chemical scents that help regulate the unity of the colony and lays lots of eggs.

Helen and her roommates live in a nest inside a tree cavity in Tootie’s backyard. Some of her distant relatives live nests under hanging plants and other places where they can hide from predators who eat bees and steal honey.

What types of bees live in your yard?

Helen’s Hobbies

Helen is most active in the early afternoon, although she’s out from mid-morning until evening running errands. You may notice Helen on flowers. Helen is a worker bee. That means she flies from plant to plant, gathering materials to carry back to the young bees in her hive.

Along the way, she drops pollen from one plant to another and helps the plants grow.

Her job keeps her very busy, so many times she doesn’t notice visitors until they’re very close. Tootie and Yoshi were afraid of Helen because she stung Tootie the first time they met. She explained that she startles easily and she prefers friends to say hello from a safe distance, and they have been friends since.

What kinds of flowers does Helen pollinate in your yard?

Helen’s Diet

As Helen collects pollen and nectar to carry back to the queen and the young bees in the hive, she eats nectar from the plants. She will eat forage pollen and nectar from all kinds of fruit trees and flowering plants, including weeds like milkweed, dandelions, clover, and goldenrod.

When Helen is done eating, she carries leftover pollen nectar back to the hive, where she feeds the young worker bees.

What other animals eat nectar?

Learn more about Helen.

Activities

Crosswords


1. Type of bee Helen is.
2. Where Helen lives.
3. Helen's family group.
4. How Helen helps flowers.
5. What Helen eats.
6. What Helen is within the hive.
7. How Helen defends herself.
8. Who Helen works for.
9. Helen's relationship to the queen.
10. What the queen produces to regulate the colony.