Elizabeth Boone, age 8, of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada,for her question:

What do bees live on?

A baby bee gets a special formula called royal jelly. She is a wormy little grub called a larva and her cradle is a waxy white cell in a honeycomb. The nursemaid bees put a gob of the creamy formula in her cell and it lasts for her first three days. Then they feed her on nourishing beebread, made from pollen and honey. When she gets to be a full grown worker bee with wings, she feeds on sweet sweet honey for the rest of her life.

The queen of the hive is the mother bee who lays all the eggs. She is bigger than the other bees and they feed her on special royal jelly all her life. Sometimes she eats a little honey in the winter, when the hive may run short of royal jelly. The worker bees make the different foods for the family from pollen and nectar. On sunny days they visit flowers to gather gains of golden pollen. They sip drops of sweet syrupy nectar from deep down in the flower throats.