Bees Reading Comprehension Passage

Lesson Snapshot
• Title: Bees
• Genre: Nonfiction (informational passage)
• Subject: Life Science
• Primary Topic: Pollination, hive roles, and waggle-dance communication
• Estimated Guided Reading Level (A–Z): S

What This Lesson Teaches Best
• Bees as insects with many kinds (more than 20,000) living almost everywhere on Earth except Antarctica.
• How bees help plants make seeds by moving pollen from flower to flower while gathering nectar and pollen for baby bees.
• How honey bees live in organized hives with shared jobs (queen, drones, and worker bees doing specific tasks).
• How honey bees turn nectar into honey and store it for later as extra food.
• How the waggle dance can share direction and distance to food, supported by the work of Karl von Frisch.

Learning Goals
• Describe where bees live and how many kinds the passage says there are.
• Explain how pollen gets from one flower to another in the passage.
• Identify what pollen and nectar do for growing baby bees.
• Describe how jobs are shared in a honey bee hive, including the queen, drones, and workers.
• Explain what the waggle dance communicates and how other bees follow it in a dim hive.
• Describe how honey is made and stored, using details from the passage.

Key Vocabulary From the Text
• pollen — yellow dust that helps plants make seeds.
• nectar — sweet liquid inside blossoms.
• colony — a group of bees living together.
• larvae — baby insects before they become adults.
• vibration — shaking that can be felt as movement.