“Where Do Honeybee Queens Come From?”

Every parent expects this question sooner or later: “Dad (Mom), where do babies come from?” So today we’ll talk with you about the birds and the bees.

The birds’ part of the story is brutally short. Mockingbirds love to eat honeybees. Yes, our Texas State Bird voraciously feasts on honeybees, and that one tasty morsel might just be the queen honeybee returning from her mating flight. Hard, but true.

Now to the bees: Honeybees make a queen when they need one. This is a true but a simplistic and woefully incomplete answer. Next time your child asks, “Where do babies come from?” you could tell him or her about honeybees. It won’t answer the child’s real question, but it might open an interesting conversation.