A lonely fox lives on an island and decides to grow a garden. He is initially frightened of a bee who comes to the garden, but eventually learns of the bee's usefulness and they become friends. I

The Fox and the Bee

Every picture in this book has a secret message. See if you can figure out what they say.

This work released under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Internationa</a>l license.

Rebus translation: A plant tries to bring bees by making flowers. Flowers have many parts like leaves and petals and stems. Inside the flower are two parts named stamens and pistils. The stamens in a flower make pollen. For a plant to make seeds and fruits, the pollen must go to the flower's pistil. Inside the flower is also nectar. Bees love nectar. The nectar is very sweet. Bees can find nectar from far away. When bees go into a flower, pollen sticks to their legs. Then the bees go to a new flower and the pollen brushes onto the pistil of the flower. This is how bees pollinate plants. Now the plants can make seeds and fruits. Bees pollinate more types of plants than any other insect. Bees also make honey and wax. Bees make honey from the nectar of flowers. Bees bring lots of nectar to their hive and make it sticky by beating their wings to dry the nectar. Honey is food for the bees. Bees use wax to make their hives. Bees fill their hive with honey. The queen bee lays eggs in the hive. The eggs hatch into larvae. Larvae eat honey and grow to be baby bees. People eat honey, too, and make candles and other things from their wax. Bees are important to us all. The end.

That evening, the fox and the bee went together to watch the sun set into the sea.

"No," said the bee. "But look how big you are compared to me. And look at your sharp claws and sharp teeth. You could eat me up in one gulp." "Hmmm," said the fox. "I have tried to be friends with the rabbits, but they always run away. Do you suppose that they are frightened of me?" "Could be," said the bee.

It was a lovely morning. The bee zipped through the breeze.

"I feel very foolish," the fox said. "I never should have been frightened of you. It would make me glad if you would come help me in my garden."

The fox dug up a square of dirt in the meadow. He planted seeds for tomatoes and zucchini and beans and watermelons and pumpkins and peas and corn and cabbages and carrots and radishes and for flowers of every kind.

The fox had run off so quickly that the bee thought something awful must have happened. Or maybe the fox had seen a terrible animal coming out of the woods right behind her! The bee did not wait, but flew off as fast as she could right behind the fox.

At his hole, the fox thought of his garden -- and of the bee. "Oh, dear," he said to himself. "What terrible things has that scary bee done to my plants?" He tried not to think about the bee's stinger, but gathered up his courage and, quick as lightning, ran to his garden. What would he find when he got there?

Just then, the bee bumbled out of a flower. Powdery pollen was all over her furry legs. She sneezed -- "kerchoo!" -- because the dust tickled her nose. "Yikes!" the fox barked from surprise. "Oh, hello," said the bee. But the fox did not hear her. He was already running as fast as he could back to his hole.

All night, the fox stayed hidden inside his hole.

Decode the secret message in every picture.

By the end of the summer there were tomatoes and zucchini and beans and watermelons and pumpkins and peas and corn and cabbages and carrots and radishes, not to mention flowers of every kind. The fox and the bee had a big party under the beechnut tree and invited all the rabbits to come.

The bee flew down to the garden. She buzzed from flower to flower and snuggled down into each one until she reached the drop of sweet nectar inside.

In a meadow at the edge of a forest near the sea, a little fox lived in his home under a beechnut tree.

One afternoon, the fox was startled by a sharp buzzing sound. A bee was zooming through the garden. It had lots of hairy legs and a fierce-looking stinger. The fox let out a yelp and ran out of the garden and all the way home.

Meanwhile, in a golden beehive in the woods, the bee was beginning her day. "Today, I will fly back to that garden with plants opening their blooms and wildflowers all around," she said.

The bee spied the fox's garden. The delicious smell of leaves and flowers rose up in the air.

On the morning the first sprouts appeared, the fox's heart leapt with joy. The sprouts opened their tiny leaves to the sun. How happy the fox was!

The fox came down to earth and hid his head in his paws, shivering with fright. The bee was also shivering. She hid in the fur next to the fox's ear. "Where is the monster?" she whispered. "You!" the fox whimpered. "You are the monster! Please don't sting me!"

The bee crawled off the fox's head and onto a leaf. She began to cry. The fox lifted up his head. "Why are you crying?" he asked.

The birdsong is lovely," said the bee, "but the birds would have eaten the seeds instead of planting them. They could not have made a garden." "That is true," said the fox. "If we were all only the same," said the bee, "how could the world ever be as beautiful as it is?"

The next morning, the fox peeked out at the sunshine. All was quiet. But he was worried about his garden and what the scary bee might have done to all the little plants.

"But if you are frightened," the fox asked, "why do you want to be my friend?" "It is true that you are bigger than I am," said the bee, "and that you have sharp teeth and sharp claws. But if you weren't big and if you didn't have claws to dig with, how could you ever have planted a garden? The butterflies are beautiful, but because they have no claws to dig with, they could not have made a garden." The fox considered this. "That is true," he said.

"What is honey?" asked the fox. "Come with me and I will show you," said the bee. So they went together to the beehive. The bee brought down a taste of honey. "It is like tasting sunshine," the fox said. "When I gather nectar from the flowers in your garden," said the bee, "the other bees and I turn it into honey."

The fox reached his hole and sat down panting. He didn't know the bee had followed him. She sat down, too, perched on the fox's head right between his ears. The fox looked around. Everything seemed quiet. "Is it gone?" the bee asked. The startled fox jumped into the air.

"I am not a monster," answered the bee. "I only wanted to visit your garden and be your friend." "I have been wishing for a friend," said the fox. "But I am frightened. How do I know you won't sting me?" "I understand," said the bee. "I am frightened sometimes, too." "You?" said the fox. "What could ever scare you?" "Well," said the bee, "for one thing -- I could be scared of you!" "Me???" said the fox. "But I have no stinger!"

"But what about your stinger?" asked the fox. "My stinger is my defense," said the bee, "the same way your teeth and claws are yours. But you are more than just your teeth and I am more than just my stinger. There is something wonderful inside each of us. We only have to look to find it." The bee smiled. "Besides," she said, "without bees, there would be no honey."

Kathy Giuffre is a Professor of Sociology at Colorado College.

When he reached the garden, everything seemed peaceful. "Whew!" sighed the fox.

The plants grew bigger every day. The fox tended them carefully. Every evening when he went down to the sea to watch the sunset, he thought about his garden and was happy.

The fox loved his home. Wildflowers bloomed in the meadow and sandpipers tip-toed along the shore. Rabbits peeped out from the woods. The sea surf sang hush-hush-hush each night as he fell asleep.

One April day, the fox woke at dawn. He felt restless. He wanted something, but he wasn't sure what. "I know," he thought. "I will plant a garden here in the meadow."

But the fox was lonely. The rabbits skittered away whenever they saw him. The sandpipers hopped off down the sea strand when he came near. When the fox sat at the edge of the sea to watch the sunset, there was no one who watched it with him.

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