Bieke and the bees

Bieke and the bees is a picture book written by Bart Callaert, beekeeper, teacher and great nature lover. The book was born from years of teaching children about bees and the desire to preserve and share this wonder with a wider audience. Not by boring, but by inspiring.

The story follows Bieke, a honey bee with big eyes and even greater curiosity, month after month throughout the beekeeping year. From the silent cold of winter when the colony huddles to stay warm, through the first snowdrops of February, to the bubbling spring when the mason bee begins to build and Little Fox digs its galleries in the sand.

The texts are written in rhyming verses that read easily. The illustrations are colorful, warm and full of details to discover together. The story is faithful to reality but never didactic: each insect that appears really exists, and each behavior corresponds to nature.

At the end of the book, you will find an appendix with all the characters, from Bieke the honey bee to Little Red-Bottom and Little Fox through the large leaf-cutter bee and the ivy bee, and a map of plants with plants for bees and the position of the sun by month.