The Case of the Vomiting Bees
Did you know that bumblebees are the world's most generous... pukers? When a bee finds a flower, it doesn't just drink for itself; it fills up a special "honey stomach" and flies home to vomit the nectar into little pots for the whole colony to eat. But scientists at the University of Cambridge found a catch: if the nectar is too sweet, it becomes thick and sticky like super-glue. A bee might spend almost a whole minute trying to throw it up! It turns out, for a bee, drinking a "mega-sweet" flower is easy, but sharing it is a real sticky struggle. Learn more!
Wee Ones
A bee follows a pattern as it visits flowers: Red flower, Yellow flower, Red flower, Yellow flower... what color flower comes next?
Little Kids
Bumblebees have 2 pairs of wings. If you see a group of 8 bumblebees, how many pairs of wings do they have in total? Let's skip count by 2s to find out!
Big Kids
A foraging bee can bring back up to 60 milligrams of nectar in one trip. When it returns to the hive, it passes the nectar to "house bees" who store it. If a forager passes half of its 60-milligram load to one house bee, how many milligrams does that house bee receive?
The Sky's the Limit
A bee takes about 0.6 minutes to vomit a single stomach-full of thick, sticky nectar. If the bee collects nectar 10 times in one day, how many minutes does it spend vomiting? What if it collects nectar 100 times? (Hint: Shift the decimal point one or two places to the right!)