Amazing Facts: Here's the Buzz About Bees

The brown-and-yellow striped honey bee is such a familiar insect that we almost expect to see it wherever there are flowering plants. Whether the flower is in a city park or a country garden, it is likely to be visited by a bee. But surprisingly, there were no honey bees in the Americas before the European colonists came. Among all the things the native peoples found odd about the Europeans, their habit of carrying colonies of insects with them was one of the oddest. Native Americans called the honey bee "the white man's fly" -- and who would want more flies around, especially flies that could sting? (In earlier times, the only sugary stuff in North America was maple syrup, which was fine if you lived where there were sugar maple trees -- mostly in the Northeast and the Lake States -- but not so fine if you didn't.) The Native Americans soon found out, however, that the sticky stuff inside those beehives was deliciously sweet. In turn, the honey bees found a whole continent full of flowers and great places to build hives. They literally went wild over the Americas, and are found today nearly everywhere that flowers bloom. Isn't that a sweet story?

More on: Backyard Science Activities for Kids