How to Draw a Bee

Insects are legion, they come in a thousand shapes and just as many colors. They are everywhere and each has its place in their ecosystem. Yet, there are some that are more familiar to us, even friendly, and only a few are lucky enough to be seen that way!

Today we are going to study an insect dear to us, the bee!

Like all insects, bees have a body segmented into three parts: head, thorax, and abdomen. The head features a pair of antennae, external mouthparts, and a pair of eyes. The thorax has three pairs of jointed legs and two pairs of wings.

At least 20,000 species of bees are catalogued on the planet, but they do not all behave the same way (some are solitary, for example), and many bees do not produce honey. However, they are all vegetarians and foragers (meaning they fly from flower to flower to feed).

Please note that bumblebees form a particular group of bees that we will not discuss here.

PROPORTIONS AND STRUCTURE OF THE BEE

This first diagram shows the composition specific to insects:

The head, thorax, and abdomen are found, as well as the three pairs of legs.

Below, on the left drawing, we simplify the shapes.

The head (in orange) is a triangle which will be smoothed at the corners. The thorax (dark green) is rather round.

The abdomen has an oblong shape that tapers towards the rear of the animal (avoid ending the abdomen with a marked point, favor a rounded end).

The bee's abdomen can be segmented into 5 parts:

The four parts that make up the bee are well defined: blue, green, pink and purple sections.

The fifth segment is, as you see, divided into two.

In fact, you need to treat zone 1 and zone 2 of the red segment as part of the same segment. A demarcation will still be visible between section 1 and 2, but there will be no break in the silhouette, which is why I prefer that you consider red zone 1 and red zone 2 as part of the same segment. Additionally, often the red zone 1 will be obscured by fur.

In the drawing on the right we will try to define the proportions.

The thorax (in green) measures two head lengths (in blue).

The abdomen is slightly longer than the combined lengths of the thorax and head. One could almost say that the abdomen is the length of one thorax and two head lengths, but that would be just a tiny bit too long.

Diagram A will tell us where to place the elements on the body.

The eye in blue is a very elongated circle. It is placed on the edges of the head but well centered on the side of the head triangle.

In green, the antennas start at the bottom of the eye, they will be right in the middle of the length of the head (see previous diagram).

The three pairs of legs are distributed at the bottom of the thorax (attachments in pink / pink arrows). Note that even the hindmost leg is attached to the thorax.

In red, we see where to attach the wing. Draw a line on the "back" of the animal, above the abdomen (horizontal red line). The wing will be attached between the middle of the thorax and this back line. The wing attachment will be placed slightly before the middle vertical axis (vertical red line).

Diagram B revisits the proportions mentioned previously.

Diagram C focuses on the construction of the thorax and abdomen. The thorax is nicely rounded. It includes the five parts of the abdomen: blue, green, violet, pink, and red, with the red section actually divided into two sub-parts.

Diagram D has a bit more precision on the abdomen.

Between the segments of the areas, very short hairs (red lines) provide the striped effect of the bees' coat.

These light hairs (which can range from light straw yellow to light auburn) appear at the beginning of a segment and cover about half of it.

Note that in reality the plates of the segments do not descend to the "underneath" (area shaded in orange) of the bee. The segments end along a demarcation (blue line) that runs along the bottom of the abdomen.

Along this demarcation and at the junctions of the segments, small fine hairs (green lines) blur the outline. These hairs become increasingly sparse towards the end of the abdomen.

DRAWING THE BEE'S WINGS

As mentioned previously, bees have two pairs of wings. It might seem like they have only one pair because the smaller rear wings do not really stand out at rest. Their attachment is very close to the attachment of the front wings, they are smaller and tend to disappear under the fur of the thorax.

In addition, the hind wings fit perfectly under the forewings at rest.

Above, the drawing on the left helps us simplify the wing pattern.

From the attachment, draw a slightly thick line that frames the upper edge of the front wing (blue line). You can do the same for the rear wing which is smaller.

For the front wing, draw two lines in the first part of the length (red lines) and one for the rear wing. From there, segment the wings by drawing a few lines that radiate outward (purple lines). You can finish with lines across the width of the wing (green lines) following the curve of the wing.

To the right is the general silhouette of the wings. The small wing, in pink, is cast in the shape of the upper wing. We are dealing with very soft triangular shapes.

DRAWING THE HEAD

We will rely on the observation of two heads, model A of a very fluffy bee and model B of a bee with less fur.

Diagrams A.1 and A.2:

The head is a triangular base (orange area) placed in a circle (in red).

Diagrams B.1 and B.2:

The eyes (in pink) are rounded and elongated. They are centered on the edges and cover the height of the head well (pink segments and arrows).

The antennae are divided into two parts: a green, continuous segment, and a blue segment which is fragmented (a ringed effect is observed) and at least 2x longer than the green segment.

The antennae originate at the bottom of the eyes and are well centered between the two eyes with a small space between them.

In diagram B.2, the bee slightly lifts its head and since it has less fur, the green area is clearly visible.

In diagram B.1, the animal has more fur and the hairs cover the base of the antennae. They appear to be attached higher up.

Diagrams C.1 and C.2:

The direction of the hair growth is in red.

The pink shaded areas highlight the areas where the fur is less dense and allows the "shell" of the head beneath to show through.

In blue, I return to the shape of the mandibles; there are two and they are placed right at the bottom, on the tip of the head triangle. In diagram C.2, as the animal has less fur, we can see the plate of the lower lip (outlined in green).

You will have noticed the tongue in drawing 2, simplified here. In the context of a realistic drawing which is very close-up on the head, I recommend you learn more about the detailed construction of the tongue.

THE BEE'S LEGS

So we were saying: three pairs of identically constructed legs.

In general shape, the two front pairs are almost identical. The foremost pair of legs being slightly thinner, while the hind legs are more "robust".

Regardless, we will observe 5 segments:

1/ pink, short segment connected to the thorax partially covered by hairs.

2/ green, short segment, about the same length as segment 1 and slightly wider.

3/ blue, even broader and longer segment. Note that segment 3 of the hind legs has the "pollen sac," the collected pollen will form a ball in this area.

4/ Violet, shorter segment than blue, same thickness or slightly thicker (especially on the hind legs).

5/ Red, a somewhat special segment, composed of small articulated segments (4 or 5). This area ends in a claw-like "V".

Be aware that the legs are completely covered with very short, fine hairs called "scopa," which are used during harvesting. Except for a hyper-realistic drawing, we will not represent them all. I advise you to primarily make a few on the purple and green/pink segments.

Note that we are dealing with segments that do not all have the same shape. Observation will remain the safest way to memorize the silhouette of these elements.

Let's recap

Before moving on to step-by-step drawing, let's take a brief moment:

Left diagram:

In orange: the triangular head. The eye is quite long. The antennae attach at the bottom of the eyes.

In purple, the leg attachments on the thorax.

In green is the wing attachment, between the "back" line and the mid-height line of the thorax.

In blue, the area on the hind leg that holds the pollen.

On the right diagram:

Proportions: thorax = 2 head lengths, abdomen = 1 thorax length + 1 head length + about ½ head length.

The segments of the abdomen: 5 segments with the first segment (red) made up of 2 parts that follow each other without demarcation.

DRAWING STEP BY STEP

So we are now perfectly knowledgeable about bee anatomy. I have chosen to show you a bee in full harvesting activity, but stationary.

For this we need a flower (made in advance for the occasion, I will not discuss its creation). There is an article on how to draw a flower, if you want to draw one ;)

Step 1: The head, in a soft triangle.

Step 2: The chest, rounded.

Step 3: The abdomen, elongated in shape (I keeping in mind the proportions defined previously).

Step 4: In red, the position of the eye and the antenna attachment.

Step 5: In red 1, the back line, and red 2 the middle line of the thorax. Between the two lines, I place the wing attachment (green) a little before the center of the thorax (green line).

Step 6: I outline the wing.

Step 7: I construct the legs by reusing the structure established previously.

Step 8: I color the abdomen segments in red (the top segment cut into two parts in green). In purple, I draw the antennae. In red, I place a line for the front leg which is on the other side.

Step 9: Let's not forget that the head, thorax and a small part of the abdomen will be covered with fur (orange area).

Step 10: Over my construction line, I draw the legs while keeping in mind the shapes seen in the study dedicated to them.

Step 11: I draw the rest of the bee and correct a segment of the abdomen a bit (correction shown in red), so that the segments are not suddenly too small or too short compared to the preceding ones, knowing that the "largest" segment will be the one just after the thorax.

Step 12: I draw the wings and discreetly place the wing on the other side (addition underlined in red).

Step 13: Finalizing the layout.

Now, let's move on to coloring:

Step A: A light brown base for the body and a very dark brown, almost black, for the legs, antennae, eyes, and the wing attachment.

Stage B: I color the abdomen with a fairly dark brown, though lighter than the shade used for the legs.

Step C: I "fleck" the fur with slightly darker spots and place the light drawing on the abdomen. At the base of each segment, I draw the stripes in a shaggy way that create the bee's coat. I add a stroke of light on the eyes and legs to give them some volume.

Step D: I add some hairs on the legs (green arrows) and place one or two discreet lines on the wings (blue arrow).

Step E: I add a sharper streak of light along the abdomen and on the top of the eye (pink arrows).

Step F: I enhance the flower which I had faded for more visibility and I place a slight shadow under the abdomen.

And it's done!

So, given the small size of our star of the day, it will be quite difficult for you to carry out studies based on observation in nature. But I encourage you to do some research yourself, if only to learn more about how bees fly.

Think of bees, they perfectly complement flowers!

Illustrator and Writer: Elo Illus