You’ll find bees popping up in all sorts of my resources. They are just such spectacular and important little creatures! I strongly believe that every child should learn about pollination and understand how crucial bees are for our food supply and our planet’s health. And since you’re here, ready to dive into a bee art activity, I’m sure you agree!

If you want to teach your little one more bees and pollination, I invite you to check out Summer Camp at Home or my Pollinators Family Unit Study. Summer Camp at Home has a whole week dedicated to bees, and the Pollinators Family Unit Study teaches your child about all sorts of powerful pollinators (did you know the Black and White Ruffed Lemur is a pollinator?!).

In fact, this art project is one of the hands-on activities included with the Pollinators Family Unit Study!

Free Honey Bee Alphabet Cards

Before we get started, you’ll want to grab these bee-utiful honey bee alphabet cards! Each letter includes a term related to bees, beekeeping, or flowers that attract bees—perfect for playing Go Fish, using in a scavenger hunt, and learning some new words. They look sweet as honey clipped to a piece of twine and hung up in your learning space! Grab your copy right here:

Watercolor Bee Art Activity

For this art project, you will need:

• White paper (watercolor paper is ideal!)
• Pencil
• Black crayon or pastel
• Watercolors or watered-down paint
• Paintbrush
• Hexagon pattern block (optional)

To create your watercolor bee art, first, draw a simple bee in the middle of a piece of paper.

If your little ones are completely obsessed with Art for Kids Hub like mine, they have two wonderful tutorials for drawing a bee that you could use. (And if you’ve never heard of Art for Kids Hub, trust me, you’re going to LOVE it!)

• How to Draw a Realistic Bee for Big Kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho4aUHY6fss
• How to Draw a “Letter B” Bee for Preschoolers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvLJftSrKJk

Next, draw connecting hexagons in the open space of the watercolor paper to represent the honeycomb. You will want the hexagons to come up to the bee, but not over it.

If you have a hexagon pattern block, you could use it to trace the hexagon shapes. We made a little hexagon template out of a piece of cardboard from an old cereal box, and it worked perfectly!

This is also a wonderful time to introduce your child to the concept of a tessellation. A tesselation is when you can cover a surface using one or more repeating shapes with no overlaps and no gaps. Just like you did with the hexagon shape!

Trace everything in black wax crayon or pastel, then it’s time to break out the watercolors! Start by using your black and yellow watercolor paints to paint the bee.

Now, use multiple fun colors to paint the hexagons!

And voila! You have some fun watercolor bee art to brighten up the house while you patiently (not so patiently) wait for those warm summer days.

Learn More About Bees and Pollination

I hope you enjoyed this bee art activity!

And if you did, be sure to check out Summer Camp at Home (there’s a version for Little Kids and one for Big Kids) or my Pollinators Family Unit Study for even more fun, hands-on, bee activities to enjoy this spring and summer: