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Bee Drawing Ideas

One bee to draw per press: a named kind, a hive scene, a bee at a flower or a cartoon.

Bee Drawing Ideas

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  1. A bumblebee's round body from aboveRound and covered in soft hair, with contrasting bands of color. Keep the outline fuzzy, not smooth.

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Kinds of bee 16

  • A bee's face head on: two big eyes, three small ones Large compound eyes cover much of the head, with three small simple eyes between and above them.
  • A blue-banded bee with pale blue stripes Pale, pearly blue stripes cross its abdomen: four complete bands on a female, five on a male.
  • A bumblebee's round body from above Round and covered in soft hair, with contrasting bands of color. Keep the outline fuzzy, not smooth.
  • A carpenter bee beside a bumblebee Shiny abdomen on most carpenter bees. A bumblebee's abdomen is covered all over with dense hair.
  • A garden bumblebee flying with its long tongue out Its head is oblong and its tongue very long, so long that it often flies with it extended.
  • A green sweat bee, head and thorax shining like metal Sweat bees of the genus Agapostemon are mostly blue or green, above all on the head and thorax.
  • A honeybee queen, worker and drone in a row Workers are much smaller than the other two. A drone's eyes are twice the size of a worker's.
  • A honeybee worker in side view, three body parts Head, thorax, abdomen. All six legs and both pairs of wings join the middle part, the thorax.
  • A leafcutter bee carrying a disc of leaf Leafcutter bees neatly cut pieces of leaf or petal and use them to line the cells of their nests.
  • A red mason bee covered in ginger hair Named for its dense gingery hair. It nests in holes or stems that are already there and digs none itself.
  • A tawny mining bee, fox-red on top The female has fox-red hair on the top of her thorax and abdomen, and black hair on her head and underside.
  • A violet carpenter bee at its nest in dead wood Among Europe's biggest bees. Like most carpenter bees it makes its nest in dead wood.
  • A wool carder bee scraping fuzz from a leaf It scrapes hair from leaves such as lamb's ears and carries it in a bundle under its body to line the nest.
  • An orchard mason bee walling a hollow reed with mud Mason bees are named for building with mud. This one divides its nest into cells with mud walls.
  • An orchid bee in metallic green, gold and blue Most orchid bees have brilliant metallic coloring. Leave slivers of white paper for the shine.
  • Wallace's giant bee beside a thumb, to scale The largest known bee: black, with large jaws. A female can reach 38 mm, as long as an adult's thumb.

Hive and honey 16

  • A bee fanning at the hive door, tail in the air To guide foragers home, workers raise their abdomens and fan their wings hard to spread a scent.
  • A bee smoker puffing A metal cylinder whose lid narrows to a small gap, with bellows on the side to push air through.
  • A beekeeper's hat and veil hanging on a hook Face and neck need protecting most, so nearly every beekeeper wears a veil at least.
  • A bumblebee nest with wax honeypots Bumblebees mold wax into honeypots. Buff-tailed bumblebees usually nest underground, in old rodent dens.
  • A frame of comb lifted out of a box hive In a box hive the bees build comb into frames that lift out. A brood frame usually has honey in its top corners.
  • A hollow log hive standing on end Before box hives, bees were kept in skeps or in gums: sections of hollow tree set upright, much like a wild nest.
  • A honey extractor with its drum cut away A drum holds a basket of frames and spins, flinging the honey out. The wax comb stays whole.
  • A jar of honey with a wooden dipper The dipper's head is a row of evenly spaced grooves, and it is often turned from wood.
  • A queen cell hanging off the comb A finished queen cell has the shape and texture of a peanut, and is built out from the face of the comb.
  • A queen ringed by workers There is normally one queen in a hive. Draw her larger than the workers, all their heads pointing in at her.
  • A straw skep on a bench A skep is a basket set open end down, made of coils of straw, with one entrance at the bottom.
  • A swarm hanging from a branch A swarm does not fly far at first. It clusters about the queen on a branch while scouts look for a new home.
  • An egg, a larva and a pupa, each in its own cell A worker's egg hatches after three days. The cell is capped with wax on day nine, with the larva inside.
  • The figure-of-eight dance as a diagram A waggle run straight up the comb means the flowers lie toward the sun. A longer waggle means farther.
  • One comb cell as a solid shape A six-sided tube. Its closed end is three equal rhombuses joined at a point on the cell's center line.
  • Six-sided comb, seven cells drawn first Start with one hexagon and fit six more around it. Every wall is shared by two cells.

Bees at flowers 16

  • A bee hotel of hollow reeds, one tube sealed A bee hotel copies hollow stems with a bunch of reeds or holes drilled in wood, for solitary bees.
  • A bee landing on a lavender spike, legs reaching Tilt the body up, spread the six legs like landing gear and blur the wings into two pale fans.
  • A bumblebee shaking pollen out of a tomato flower Buzz pollination: the bee grips the flower and works its flight muscles until the anthers shake.
  • A garden bumblebee hovering at a comfrey bell It visits deep flowers such as comfrey, clover and foxglove, which suit its long tongue.
  • A honeybee drinking at the rim of a birdbath Workers fetch water as well as nectar. Stand her on a pebble at the water's edge, head down.
  • A honeybee drinking nectar, its proboscis straight down A bee has a pair of jaws for chewing and a long proboscis to suck nectar. Draw both.
  • A male bee asleep, holding on to a grass stem At night male blue-banded bees hang on to plant stems. Draw several on one stem, all facing up.
  • A perfectly round hole under a garden bench A carpenter bee's doorway is often a perfectly circular hole under a beam, a bench or a limb.
  • A squash bee inside a squash blossom Squash bees are pollen specialists: they collect from squashes, gourds and their close relatives.
  • A strip of meadow with a different bee on each flower Give each its own outline: a slim honeybee, a round bumblebee, a small dark sweat bee.
  • A tawny mining bee's nest hole in a lawn, ringed with soil More than a hundred females may nest in a few square meters, yet each one digs a nest of her own.
  • An orchard mason bee on apple blossom Also called the blue orchard bee. It is put to work on fruit trees that bloom early in spring.
  • Looking up from inside a tulip at a bee on the rim Foreshorten the petals into a ring around the page and put the bee small against the sky.
  • One bee and one flower at four moments Approach, land, drink, leave. Keep the flower still and let only the bee and one petal move.
  • One hind leg with its ball of pollen The pollen basket is a polished hollow on the hind leg with a fringe of hairs around it.
  • Two foragers passing: one loaded, one setting out The loaded bee hangs lower in the air, hind legs heavy with pollen. The other one is clean.

Cartoon bees and lettering 12

  • A bee as the dot of a letter i Write hive or honey in lowercase and let the bee hover exactly where the dot goes.
  • A capital B drawn furry and striped, with wings Two bumps for the letter, bands across both, and a pair of small wings on its upright.
  • A cartoon bee giving directions with a waggle Draw motion lines around its tail and an arrow over its head that points at a flower.
  • A cartoon bee with shopping bags of pollen on its back legs The joke is where the bags hang. A bee carries its pollen on its hind legs.
  • A cartoon drone with huge eyes, waiting to be fed True to life: a drone gathers no nectar or pollen and cannot feed without help from the workers.
  • A cartoon guard bee at the hive door, arms folded Guard bees post themselves by the hive entrance. Give this one a raised eyebrow.
  • A cartoon queen in a tiny crown, bigger than her workers The crown is the joke and her size is true: a queen is much larger than a worker.
  • A comic strip of one forager's day Four panels: a flower, a full load, the hive door, the dance. No words, only the bee.
  • A honeycomb maze from the door to the queen Draw the whole comb first, then open one wall of each cell along the true path.
  • A swarm of tiny bees forming a word in the air Hundreds of dots and dashes. Pack them close inside the letters and thin them out at the edges.
  • The word BUZZ written by a dotted flight path One unbroken dotted line in loops, with the bee at the very end of the last Z.
  • Your name in hexagon cells Rule a block of comb first, then shade only the cells that spell the letters. Leave the rest empty.

How it works

A bee is three ovals in a row with everything attached to the middle one. These bee drawing ideas name the kinds, open the hive, follow a bee to a flower, and end on a dozen cartoon bees and letters.

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Honeybee or bumblebee

Decide before the first line, because the outlines differ. A bumblebee is larger, broader and stouter than a honeybee, covered in soft hair, and the tip of its abdomen is more rounded. So draw the honeybee as three slim ovals with a firm line, and the bumblebee as one fat shape with short strokes that leave a fuzzy edge.

Questions and answers

What is an easy bee to draw?

A bumblebee from above: one fat oval with bands across it, a round head and two short wings on each side. A honeybee in side view is three ovals in a row. Easy, under More filters, holds 22.

How do you draw a honeycomb?

Start with a single hexagon and add six more around it, each sharing a wall with the first. Keep going outward in rings. Shade a few cells darker for honey and leave the rest open.

How many wings and legs does a bee have?

Six legs and four wings. The wings come in two pairs, and both pairs and all the legs join the thorax, the middle of the three body parts.

What does the waggle dance look like?

A figure of eight on the comb with a straight waggle run through the middle. The direction of the run stands for the direction of the flowers measured from the sun, and a longer waggle means a longer flight.

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