Charles Isaac Watts

HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE

"How doth the little bee improve each shining hour, and gather honey all the day from every opening flower! How skillfully she builds her cell! How neat she spreads the wax! And labors hard to store it well. With the sweet food she makes - in works of labor or of skill, I would be busy too; For Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do. In books, or work or healthful play, let my first years be passed, that I may give for every day some good account at last." - Charles Isaac Watts

Fact

Bumblebees are social insects which form colonies with a single queen. Colonies are smaller than those of honeybees, growing to as few as 50 individuals in a nest. Female bumblebees can sting repeatedly, but generally ignore humans and other animals . Cuckoo bumblebees do not make nests; their queens aggressively invade the nests of other bumblebee species, kill the resident queens and then lay their own eggs which are cared for by the resident workers.