How to make bees

Are you looking for a simple bee craft? Learn how to make bees from wood beads and wire! These little DIY bees are not only adorable but they are super easy to make!

Hey guys! I am back with another bee themed craft for you. Last week I shared these cute DIY beehives, and they were a hit with you all! Well, where there are beehives, there are bees! So today I am sharing how to make bees to go with your beehives. 🙂

These DIY bees are a super quick and easy craft to make, but they have a big impact! I think they are just super adorable and even Mr. Wonderful thinks so too! He said he thinks these bee crafts and mantel are his favorite yet! 

They only take a couple materials to make them and they may be things you already have on hand. Each DIY bee took me less than 10 minutes to make, so you can make a whole hive in one afternoon. You can make them with either black or gold wire, or both like I did!

WATCH THE QUICK VIDEO

Don’t want to read all the instructions? I have included a video in this post showing you how to make bees. If you can’t see the video, turn off your ad blocker. Also, if you ever want to slow down the video, just click on the three dots in the lower right hand corner of the video and you can change the playback speed. If you want more detailed instructions, continue reading.

Supplies to make DIY bees

*There are links to products in this post that I use or are similar to products I use. If you buy something from one of these links, I may make a small commission (with no additional cost to you) from the purchase. I will not recommend anything that I would not buy myself.

• 18 gauge wire – gold and black
• Wood beads – I used the 16 mm and 14 mm sizes from this multipack
• Jewelry making tools
• Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks
• Acrylic paint – colors shown in picture
• Small paint brush
• Bamboo skewer

Paint the wood bees

To make the bees look more realistic, I decided to paint the wood beads. You could also just leave the beads natural wood and that would look great too, but I was going for the black and gold look. An easy way, that I have learned from experience, to paint wood beads is to use a bamboo skewer.

This allows you to paint several beads at a time without getting your fingers painted on too! Paint the bigger 16mm beads gold and the 14 mm beads black. Put the beads to the side to allow them to dry, which they do very quickly.

How to make a bee

You will need some wire to make these little bees. I used some gold wire that I had on hand, which was 18 gauge I believe. I also used 20 gauge black wire, which was a little thinner wire but still worked. Honestly, I prefer the look of the thicker gold wire, so I would recommend 18 gauge wire for both. However, if you have some 20 gauge wire on hand, it will be fine. 🙂 Cut a piece of wire to about 17.5 inches in length.

Thread a gold bead onto the end of the wire about 1.5 inches down. Bend the wire underneath the gold bead at a 90 degree angle.

Start forming the wire so that is spirals around the bead. The wire is soft and pliable enough that you can just turn the bead and the wire will form to the shape of the bead.

Continue until you get to the top of the wood bead.

Form the bee wings

Form the wings using your finger as a guide to make a nice curve bringing the wire behind the wire sticking straight up. Make another wing of equal size on the other side bringing the wire in front of the wire sticking up. 

Lastly tuck the wire under the first wing and bend the wire up so it is parallel with the wire sticking straight up. Doing it this way locks the wings in place. I did not do it like this on the video, unfortunately, so I had to readjust my wire which you did not see in the video. Just do it this way to start out with and it will make your life much easier as I found out! LOL

Place a black bead onto both wires and push it down onto the wings. You can add a dab of hot glue to help keep the bead secure. The hot glue does not stick to the wire very well, but it will to the beads if you get them both touching. This is not absolutely necessary but I did it just in case.

Using some wire cutters, cut the antennae down to about an inch each. Using some round nose pliers, grab the tip of one antennae and roll the end into itself. Repeat this with the other side as well.

Here is the wire bee from different angles. You can bend the wings up and back a bit to make it look like it is flying.

How to style your DIY bees

Speaking of flying bees, I styled mine in a couple ways as you will see soon on my bee themed mantel that I will be sharing with you. One of the ways I displayed my bees was hanging them from fishing wire so it looks like they are flying.

The other way was that I put them on the DIY beehives that I made. I just added a dab of hot glue on the bottom and stuck them to the beehive. You could also add them to flowers or add a small clothespin to the bottom so you can attach them to anything! These DIY bees could also be made into jewelry like earrings or a necklace. They could be easily incorporated into a tablescape as napkin rings or place holders. The ideas are endless!!

What do you think of these little wire bees? Do you like the gold or black wire one better? I will be back soon to share my bee themed mantel with you but until then have a wonderful week!