Honey bees are small but very important. They live together in large groups. One group can have more than 50,000 bees. Each bee has different work to do.

There are three kinds of bees in each group. The queen is the most important bee. There is only one queen. She is bigger than the other bees. Her job is to have babies. She can have more than 1,000 babies in one day. The queen can live for three to five years.

Most bees in the group work. All of these bees are female. Young ones stay inside and care for baby bees. They also keep the home clean. Old ones go outside to get food. They fly from one place to another. They take sweet water from some places. They also take yellow bits from these same places. These bees live for only about 6 weeks in summer.

The third kind of bee is male. Male bees do not work. They do not look for food. Their only job is to meet with a queen from a different group. After that, they die.

Bees make honey from the sweet water. They keep the honey in their home. The home has many small rooms. Bees eat the honey in winter when they cannot get food outside.

Bees are very important for nature and for us. When bees go to get the sweet water, yellow bits get on their bodies. They carry these bits to other places. This helps things grow. Many of the foods we eat need bees to grow. We would not have many things to eat without bees.

Today, bees have many problems. Some bees are getting sick. Some die because people use strong things on what they grow. It is important to help bees. We can have more color outside our homes. We can also try not to use strong things that kill bees. When we help bees, we help ourselves too.