Little bee Hanni is very proud: After diligently building comb in the hive and taking care of the baby bees over the past few days, she has now been promoted to forager. Finally! Now she is Hanni Honeybee. And she is very excited, because today she may leave the hive for the first time and go in search of colorful blossoms. Hanni crawls forward with the other honey foragers … and soon stands on the small platform in front of the hive and looks around. She stretches her wings into the sun and gets ready to take off. One of her colleagues is just coming back from a flight. She lands next to Hanni and begins to dance. This shows all the other honey foragers the way to the next food source. Now Hanni understands which direction she must go. "Hooray, it's finally starting," Hanni cries. It feels wonderful to glide through the air.
A little later she has already reached the beautiful garden her colleague talked about and heads toward a flowering bush. Hanni flies from blossom to blossom, takes the sweet nectar and carefully packs the pollen onto her hind legs. On her first flight mission Hanni of course wants to do everything right. But … what is that? Suddenly she feels a sharp gust of air and sees a huge hand coming toward her. Hanni still tries to get to safety, but she can no longer fly away fast enough. She is hit by the hand and thrown to the ground. Luckily the grass is soft and cushions Hanni's impact. "Ouch, I'm feeling dizzy," Hanni groans and tries to get her bearings. But she has little time to catch her breath, because she landed right next to a large shoe in the grass. As quickly as she can, she picks herself up and crawls away. "Get me out of here!" Hanni mutters and hides in the shadow of a large clay pot to recover a little from the shock. "Those must be the human monsters the other forager bees warned me about," Hanni says and casts a cautious glance in the direction of the big foot. Fortunately it moves away—in the other direction!
Hanni is still a little scared. She would love to fly back to the hive! But then she takes a deep breath and gathers all her bee courage. She tests her four wings and checks her six legs—nothing is broken. Lucky again! Before the person with the big feet returns, Hanni quickly flies off. At first she is still a bit confused and doesn't know exactly which direction to search for new blossoms. But then she smells a delicate floral scent and follows it until she finds a beautiful wildflower bed. "Oh, how lovely," Hanni rejoices. "There are even bigger and more beautiful flowers here than in the other garden. And they are full of nectar!" She begins collecting even more diligently than before—after all, she has already lost quite a bit of time. Surely the other foragers are already waiting for her! "Phew, now I've collected enough pollen," Hanni murmurs. "Now I have to go back to the hive and deliver it." Once there, she shows her colleagues which way they must fly to reach the garden with the beautiful blossoms. And she also warns the others about the nasty human with the big shoes and hands! After a short rest, when Hanni Honeybee returns to the wildflower bed herself, she notices two large shadows. "Oh no, not again," Hanni screams loudly and tucks in her wings. She braces herself to be knocked to the ground again. But when nothing happens after a few seconds, she looks more closely and cautiously. Hanni is surprised: the two people are busy watering the flowers and pulling weeds, but neither of them tries to shoo her away. "So there are also nice people who like us bees after all," Hanni says with relief and gets to work. She busily flies from blossom to blossom collecting pollen—just like a hardworking honeybee should.
Learn more about bees & nature
Who wants to learn more about bees and is interested in tips on which flowers and plants bees particularly like should read our article Interesting facts about bees.
For everyone who wants to help the bees collect honey, we have the game "Hanni Honeybee" in our assortment.
Children learn most about nature when they experience their environment with all their senses. For example, this works with small projects in the garden. The children can help with gardening and learn a lot about plants and insects. And when it's not so nice outside, they're sure to enjoy playing with the cute board game "My First Games – First Orchard".
