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Year 5 Reading Comprehension Week 2 Text 30 How Does a Bee Develop? Bees are social insects that live in organised groups called colonies. Each colony lives in a hive and each hive has one queen, some drones (or male bees), and lots and lots of worker bees. It is the drones’ job to mate with the queen so that she can lay eggs. A queen bee will begin laying eggs 10 days after mating. Each egg will be placed in a cell in the comb, which is inside the hive. She will lay about 3000 eggs a day for the rest of her life, about two years, and will never leave the hive. Four days after being laid, the eggs will hatch. At this stage they are called larvae. The larvae will be fed ‘bee bread’, which is a mixture of nectar and pollen. On the ninth day after hatching, the larvae cells will be covered with wax as they begin the transformation into a pupa. While at this stage, the pupa will not eat. Finally, 21 days from the beginning of the life cycle, the pupa opens and an adult worker bee emerges, ready to begin life collecting pollen to make honey for the hive. This life cycle process for bees is known as metamorphosis. Text sourced from: Targeting Text Interactively Questions: Read the text and shade a bubble or write an answer to each question. 1 What is a ‘colony’? 2 What is a ‘drone’? 3 How long after mating will the queen bee lay eggs? one week ten days two days nine months 4 Why doesn’t the queen leave the hive? the worker bees block the exits she cannot move her job is to lay eggs and protect them she is too big to get out 5 How long does the queen bee live? questioning 6 What is the mixture of pollen and nectar fed to larvae called? questioning 7 What do the larvae become? questioning 8 How did ‘bee bread’ get its name? it looks like bread it tastes like bread it is a nourishing staple food it contains yeast 9 What is the job of adult worker bees? they collect honey they produce wax they create cells and the comb all of the above 10 Why do worker bees have a stinger? to help them build the hive it helped them hatch when they were larvae to collect pollen to protect the hive from external threats 11 How do bees help plants? they transfer pollen from flower to flower they drain away excess nectar they attract birds they eat insects on the plant 12 What happens when the queen bee dies? the princess bee takes her place the hive dies a larva is fed special food to turn it into a new queen bee a drone takes her place