Bee Research Questions for Kids

How much do you know about bees? Did you know they have five eyes and four wings? Did you know that not all bees live in hives? Did you know that not all bees are black and white? Encourage students to engage with all sorts of fascinating facts about bees with a research project, using this handy, printable list of Bee Research Questions to get them started!

You can find the instructions for downloading a printable version of this list of Bee Research Questions below.

A bee research project would be a great way to raise awareness about World Bee Day with school age children. It would also tie in nicely with Earth Day celebrations, or an Environmental Science unit.

What is World Bee Day?

With more than 20,000 identified bee species in the world, and the importance of bees to the world’s environment – not least to the production of both food and oxygen – bees are kind of a big deal! World Bee Day was initiated on May 20th, 2017 by the United Nations as a means of raising awareness of the significant contribution that bees make to the world. It is now celebrated on May 20 each year.

What’s the big deal about bees?
In one word – pollination. Bees collect nectar and pollen from flowers. Nectar and pollen are food sources for bees. As bees move from flower to flower collecting the nectar and pollen that they need, they transfer pollen from plant to plant and enable pollination.

When animals and insects pick up the pollen of flowers and spread them to other flowers, they enable the plant to reproduce. Importantly to humans, this includes many food crops and trees for oxygen production. When pollination occurs, the fertilized flowers of the plant enable it to reproduce or form fruit. Whilst other animals, including birds and rodents, can act as pollinators, the most common (and important) pollinators are insects, especially bees.

Bees also produce food for humans directly in the form of honey. And there is a lot of interest in the medicinal properties of honey and the many other products bees make.

Unfortunately, many bee species are at risk. Their habitats are disappearing as green spaces are cleared and replaced with buildings, and the use of pesticides on crops and flowers is harmful to them.

Bee Research Questions for Kids

The printable includes the following questions about bees to be used as prompts to get students researching these wonderful, essential insects;

1. Honey bees are not the only bees in the world. How many other bee species are in your local area?
2. Not all bees sting, what sting-less bees do you have in your local area?
3. Can all honey bees sting? Or only males? Or only females?
4. Can bumblebees sting once or multiple times?
5. What makes honey bees so noisy when they fly? Are all bees noisy when they fly?
6. Do all bees live in a beehive? If they don’t, where do they live?
7. Do all bees make honey and honeycomb?
8. Does a bee have two eyes or more?
9. How fast do bees fly and do all bees fly as fast as each other?
10. Do all bees have a queen bee or only the honey bee?
11. Why are honey bees so important that they are now found all round the world?
12. Do all bees swam?
13. Can honey be used as an antiseptic?
14. Does a honey bee have more than one stomach? What about other bees?
15. What threats are facing honey bee populations?
16. How can we help bees survive?
17. Are all species of bee the same size? If not, what is the smallest and what is the largest?
18. How long is a honey bees life span? Do other bees live for longer?
19. Do bees sleep at night?
20. Can bees see at night?
21. Can bees see in colors or do they see in black and white?

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