How to Draw a Bee Step by Step (Easy Cartoon Bee)

A bee is mostly two shapes, an oval and a circle, and that's good news if you're new to drawing. Here I'll walk you through how to draw a bee step by step, flying sideways with its wings up, a big smile and a little honeycomb nearby. The stripes are the part people worry about, so I'll show you a trick that makes them wrap around the body. You don't need any drawing experience to follow along.

Every new piece of the bee appears in blue, and the gray lines are your earlier work. Use the gray parts to see where each new piece joins before you start it.

Quick overview
⏱️ Time: around 25 minutes, plus coloring
🎯 Level: easy, good for kids from about 6
✏️ Steps: 12
🐝 You'll draw: a flying honeybee next to a patch of honeycomb

Supplies for a Striped Honeybee

• A pencil you can press lightly with
• A clean eraser
• A black marker or felt-tip pen
• Yellow, dark yellow and black crayons or colored pencils
• Pale blue for the wings and pink for the cheeks
• Orange and gold for the honeycomb
• A sheet of plain paper, turned sideways

If you only have yellow and black, that's still enough for a proper bee.

How to Draw a Bee Step by Step

Step 1: Sketch light guides for the body and head

Draw a slanted line that rises from the lower left toward the upper right. Around the left part of it, sketch a wide oval for the body. At the top end of the line, add a circle for the head that overlaps the oval a little. The head circle should be roughly half as wide as the body is long.

💡 Tip: Hold the pencil farther back from the tip. You'll press more gently without even trying.

Step 2: Draw the round head and the oval body

Go over the head circle with a firmer line, all the way around. Then trace the body oval, but stop where it meets the head. The head sits in front, so the body line disappears behind it. That one small gap is what makes the bee look like a single creature instead of two balloons.

💡 Tip: Turn your paper as you go around the circle so your hand always draws the easy curve.

Step 3: Add curved stripes around the body

Here's the trick I promised. Instead of straight lines, draw each stripe edge as a gentle curve that bows toward the head, from the top of the body to the bottom. Make three pairs of these curves, spaced evenly. Each pair becomes one black stripe later. Curved lines tell your eye the body is round.

💡 Tip: Draw all the curves bending the same way. One stripe bowing backward makes the body look twisted.

Step 4: Draw a stinger and six legs

At the tail end, add a small pointed triangle. Keep it short, about the size of a fingertip on your page. Under the belly, draw six little legs in three pairs, each bending back toward the tail as if the bee has pulled them in to fly. The legs farther away sit slightly behind the near ones.

💡 Tip: A stinger that's too long makes a friendly bee look like a wasp, so keep it tiny.

Step 5: Draw two pairs of wings

Honeybees have four wings. From the top of the body, just behind the head, sketch two light lines pointing up and back. Use them to draw a big oval wing tilted up and a smaller oval wing below it. Let the wings overlap the body. I draw the body lines straight through them, because bee wings are see-through.

💡 Tip: Make the top wing clearly bigger. Two wings of the same size look like rabbit ears.

Step 6: Add simple wing veins

Inside each wing, draw one or two thin lines that start near the wing's base and fan out toward the far tip. They shouldn't touch the wing's outline. Real bee wings have a lot more veins than this, but two lines are enough to say wing at a glance.

💡 Tip: Use a lighter touch for veins than for outlines, so the wing still looks thin.

Step 7: Give it antennae with knobs

On top of the head, draw two antennae. Each one goes up, then bends toward the front like an elbow, and ends in a small round knob. The far antenna starts a bit further right and comes out slightly shorter. Start each line at the head's outline rather than inside it.

💡 Tip: Fill the knobs in solid black later. Empty circles at the ends can look like tiny balloons.

Step 8: Draw big eyes, a smile and cheeks

Our bee looks to the right, so the face goes on the right half of the head. Draw two tall ovals for eyes, the far one a touch smaller. Put a round pupil low in each, with a tiny shine circle. Below them, add a curved smile, then an oval cheek on each side of it, a little lower than the eyes.

💡 Tip: Keep the eyes close together and low on the head. That spacing reads as cute right away.

Step 9: Draw a patch of honeycomb

In the lower right corner, sketch a loose oval to mark where the comb goes. Fill it with six-sided cells that share their walls, three rows of two or three. Then draw a smaller six-sided shape inside each cell so the walls look thick. From the bottom cell, let a little drip of honey run down.

💡 Tip: Draw one hexagon first and copy its size for the rest. Cells that grow or shrink look like a net.

Step 10: Add a dotted flight loop

Starting just behind the stinger, draw a path made of short dashes. Let it swing left, make one loop, and trail off toward the bottom corner. This shows where the bee has been flying. Leave a small gap between the path and the tail so it doesn't look stuck on.

💡 Tip: Say dash, gap, dash, gap quietly while you draw. It keeps the spacing even.

Step 11: Ink the lines and erase the guides

Trace over every final line with your black marker. Skip the light guide shapes from steps one, five and nine. Wait a minute for the ink to dry, then erase all the pencil marks.

💡 Tip: Ink the long body outline in two or three strokes rather than one rushed swoop.

Step 12: Color your bee

Color the head and body yellow, and add dark yellow along the belly and the lower left of the head for a soft shadow. Every other band on the body is a black stripe. Color the legs, stinger, antennae and pupils black too. Wings get pale blue, cheeks pink, the honeycomb walls orange, the honey cells gold and the empty cells light orange.

💡 Tip: Color the yellow first and the black stripes last, so black crayon doesn't smudge into the yellow.

Bee Drawing Problems and How I Fix Them

• Straight stripes. Flat lines make the body look like a box. Bow every stripe edge toward the head.
• Only one pair of wings. Bees have four wings. Add a smaller wing under the big one.
• Too many legs, or too few. Insects have six legs. Count three pairs before you ink.
• A head lost inside the body. If the circle sits fully inside the oval, the bee looks like a lemon. Let the head stick out past the front end.
• Stripes colored in random order. Coloring two black bands side by side breaks the pattern. Go yellow, black, yellow, black from the tail.

Bumblebees, Queen Bees and Other Fun Swaps

Once your honeybee is done, change it up. Make the body rounder and fluffier for a bumblebee, give it a tiny crown for a queen bee, or let it carry a flower. Younger kids can leave out the honeycomb and the flight loop, and the bee still works on its own. A bee also pairs nicely with the easy sunflower drawing tutorial, and if you want another garden bug next, try my ladybug drawing step by step lesson.

Free Bee Coloring Page and Step Guide PDF

The free bee coloring page shows a colored bee at the top to copy, a key with each color and the part it goes on, and a big outline to color below. The step-by-step PDF guide has all 12 steps with pictures and tips, and it prints on Letter or A4 paper.

📱 On a phone? Tap a download button, then open the file and choose Share → Save to Files or Print. On a computer, the PDF opens or saves straight to your Downloads folder.

Honeybee Steps on a Tall Printable Pin

Bee Questions Young Artists Often Ask

What is the easiest way to draw a bee?

Start with an oval for the body and a circle for the head. Add curved stripes, two wings on top, a small stinger and short legs underneath.

How many legs and wings does a bee have?

Six legs and four wings, like other insects with two wing pairs. In a cartoon you can tuck the legs in, but keeping the right number makes it look like a real bee.

How do you draw a cute bee for kids?

Use a big round head, large eyes placed low, pink cheeks and a smile. Short legs and soft round wings keep it friendly instead of scary.

Do bees really make honey?

Honeybees do. They collect nectar from flowers and turn it into honey, which they store in wax cells shaped like hexagons. That's why the honeycomb here has six-sided cells.

Pick up your yellow crayon, give your bee its stripes, and let it buzz off the page onto your wall. 🐝✏️

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