Honeybee Worker Day

By Grace Reyes
5th Grade, Merced County
St. Anthony School - Susie Henriques, Teacher
Illustrated by Inderkum High School

February 24th is "Honeybee Worker Day." We are all so excited! We can't wait to find out what duties we will be assigned to in taking care of our hive and our queen. My teacher, Mrs. Kollem, is teaching the first-week students how to be the best honeybee workers they can be.

"Stop buzzing, stop buzzing," she said. "Listen up! You only have a few days to learn all you can about pollination and collecting nectar. Did you know that we honeybees make up 80 percent of the pollination needed for agriculture? Without us, people probably wouldn't have enough food to eat."

I said, "Wow, I didn't know that we were that important!"

"Yes, yes, little honeybee we are very important," said Mrs. Kollem. "We not only collect nectar to feed ourselves, but people around the world count on our honey and beeswax for many purposes in their daily lives. Now let's get busy."

After three weeks of learning and taking tests, I was finally assigned as a worker bee to Farmer Lincoln's almond orchard. I flew off excited to start collecting nectar for the first time. On my way to Farmer Lincoln's orchard I started to get hungry. I flew over a beautiful flower garden, and remembering my lesson about pollination, I decided to try out my nectar-collecting skills. The flowers were so pretty I had to try each one. I buzzed from one flower to another sucking up enough nectar to fill me up until I reached my job in Farmer Lincoln's orchard. It sure is a long way, I thought to myself, I have been flying all day. I kept telling myself to just keep going because so many people were counting on me to do my job.

As the sun was setting, I arrived at Farmer Lincoln's almond orchard. There were already a whole bunch of worker bees busy pollinating the trees and collecting nectar. I also noticed all of the hives that were set up and ready for us to store our precious honey.

I thought, Wow, this is great! I hurried off to work buzzing from tree to tree collecting nectar and taking it back to my hive when I was full. I worked for several hours. I was tired from the day's long journey and the few hours I had worked, but when the day was done I had helped pollinate more than 100 trees! I felt good.

That was a lot for my first time out. After working an entire week, I realized that there was only one week left in my pollination season. Back and forth, back and forth, I went all day long pollinating almond trees and collecting nectar for two weeks straight. I have to keep going to make sure that my hive collects its 66 pounds of pollen for the year.

I must be getting close because I am beginning to feel more and more tired as each day passes. I remember my teacher, Mrs. Kollem, telling us that when our work is done our duties and life as worker honeybees will be over. This makes me very sad to think about, but I will leave this life feeling very proud of the work that I did while taking part in the cycle of life.