The Bees Knees

If Betty the Bee ever had any honey to spare, she would always spread it at the cinema. The ants were known to be workaholics but not the bees, who would do anything for a buzzing party. She usually parked her projectile missile in the honeycomb car park outside and went to buy a "SPLAT !" ticket costing two buns, stinging a fellow customer or two before reeking sugary destruction throughout the ten screens. Drop the odd crumb under the seats in theatre one - dribble a drop of fizzy squash on the exit sign in screen six and chew gum to the annoyance of all the other screen viewers. The usher on duty inside certainly got a bee in his bonnet when all the bees swarmed in. In fact, Betty the Bee so much liked to go to the cinema that a wasp friend of hers bought her a season ticket. They had been discounted 25% off in the Sunday supplement of the Bee - gle. Her favourite film star was Beatty B.A. Beauty and the whole town was buzzing when her new hit - SILENCE OF THE LIONS - was released : a sequel to the original HULLABALOO - in response to some of the creature criticisms made by the raven reviewers. It received a rapturous five star rating and a honeysuckle "Hoorah !" in the press. This particular day, Betty arrived flushed and flurried after a busy day at the office. It had taken her hours to get ready and she was dressed up to the nines - she had bees - waxed her hairy cells, put mascara on her wings and strawberry lip gloss on her lips. She had aerodynamically arranged to meet up with an old friend - Flutterby Butterfly - in the lobby where handsome bees were selling bouquets of sweet peas and red roses. The cinema was packed with hoards of other honey - seekers - all Bollywood buzzing in Hollywood harmony. They sizzled at the high points, booed buzzingly when the story got fuzzy and fizzled when BABS fell in love with the hero. Flutterby Butterfly had brought with her a big bag of bon bons to savour - nectar - flavoured sugary sherbets with soft chewy centres that they both devoured ravenously - careful not to get their wings caught up and stuck. Today's entomological epic was the best seller of all time - **** with the second best -**** showing as a preview. The pair sat through the advertisements for strawberry slush stockings - licking raspberry ripple ice - cream cornets. The next week, a thriller - THE FLY - was being shown. Echoes of rustling sweet wrappers being unwrapped resonated throughout the auditorium and many of the other insects in the crowd gruffed and grumped when a latecomer entered disturbing everyone who had to get up from their seats to make way. Betty and Flutterby Butterfly almost got lost in a big bucket of popcorn when Betty slipped and fell on an ice cube dropped from some insect body's orangeade ! The following film famed in the animal kingdom had received a big honey pot trophy from the ladybirds in the Lilliput, who looked on lusciously and lovingly as the superhero went off to save the universe from a Laval attack that was lathering the lovely forest glen. recipe

Marzipan Bees

Ingredients

Yellow marzipan

Liquorice

Mould the marzipan in 5cm (21/2 ") bee - shaped ovals and decorate with stripes of black liquorice, a small spiky tail and facial features

Bee Sting Phonetic Spelling Activity

Can you hear the bee sting inside these words ?

Circle the sound of the bee that you hear.

wasting stingy feasting boosting thrusting stinginess casting dusting hosting busting posting stinging sting wasting tasting

© Jacqueline Richards 2005