Little Bear and Honey

After the long winter, Mother Bear woke up and started stretching, and realized that her new cub was still fast asleep.

Come on, Sonny she said. It's time to go outside and meet the world. There's a lot you must learn about her.

And so, this was the beginning of the journey that little bear was born into.

As he stumbled out of the Winter home, he saw for the first time, the trees, the lakes and the mountains, far into the distance.

Wow, Mom! he said. This world is big!

Yes, Sonny, it's a very big world.

In the second year of his life, Sonny began to explore more and more, about the small animals of the forest. Then one day, he was sniffing the ground and smelled something good.

It was Honey!

He kept licking the ground and wondered, Where did the sweet stuff come from?

When he licked completely the sweetness off the ground, he stood looking around and couldn't figure out where the sweet was coming from. As he stood looking around, all of a sudden, a drop of the sweet stuff, landed on his nose. He was startled, then realized the sweet stuff was coming from a round sort of bag, high in the trees.

It was the nest of the bees. This was not told to him by his Mother, so he didn't know the danger of the nest. He did know that the sweet stuff was coming from that bag. Looking over the tree, deciding what he must do to get the sweet, was a challenge, but not a hard challenge.

This is going to be real easy, he thought.

Sonny had already began climbing trees, so he knew how to get up to the limb that held the hive. Once up there he began to hear a buzzing sound, then saw a flying insect go into the gray bag. Then another, and another, and another.

This must be their home, he thought.

He walked out on the limb and tried to grab the bag. Then all of a sudden, many flying insects came out of the bag and started stinging Sonny. Sonny quickly climbed down the tree, but the flying insects kept after him.

Hurt, Sonny made his way to home and to his Mom.

His Mom yelled, Sonny! What happened? Sonny told her about the insects.

Bees! she said. Bees! You must have bothered their home.

Sonny said, Yes.

But, Mom! I love to taste honey. Please Mom, can we talk to the bee nation? I really love the honey.

Okay. I will talk to them, she said.

So, a meeting was held between the bee and the bear nations. Mother Bear explained her position. Then said, If the bee nation can share the honey with the bear nations, the bears will agree to never harm their homes.

And, that is how the bear came to love honey and make friends with the bees.