One summer day, a bee family went out to collect nectar. They were Mother, Sister and Little Brother. They arrived at the blooming flowers and began to work. Mother and Sister selected flowers and put out their tongues to collect nectar. Little Brother buzzed from one flower to another, always trying to find a flower with more nectar than the others. Finally, he found the one, a flower with a long and strong stem and brightly-coloured petals.

Little Brother stretched his arms and legs to prepare for collecting the nectar. While Little Brother was doing this, he heard noises from under the flower. He peeped through the flower’s petals and found that a group of ants were transporting a crumb of biscuit. The ants lifted the crumb with their many arms and moved forward very slowly. They stopped from time to time to have a rest. From a nearby cave, more ants came out to help to transport the crumb. Finally it was successfully transported into their cave. All the ants also went into the cave. By the time Little Brother looked up from his watching the ants, Mother and Sister had already half filled their tummies.

Little Brother thought he should hurry up. He stretched arms and legs again to get ready. But before he put out his tongue, Little Brother felt the flower was swaying to and fro. He wondered what had happened and looked down through the petals to see a worm moving along the flower’s stem. When the worm saw Little Brother, he invited him to join him for a sunshine shower. It was a pleasant idea to enjoy the summer sunshine. Little Brother accepted the invitation joyfully. He totally forgot his work. He and the worm lay down on the petals and chatted lazily. Finally it was the worm’s mum who came to them and called the worm back home. Without his companion, Little Brother now thought of the job that he had not begun – collecting nectar. 

Several hours had passed since the bee family had come out for the day. Mother and Sister already had their fill of nectar. They flew to Little Brother to see how much nectar he had collected. There was no nectar in Little Brother’s stomach. Little Brother felt ashamed. He decided to turn over a new leaf. Now, while the light lasted, Little Brother collected as much nectar as he could.

While he was hard at work, a dragonfly flew by and greeted Little Brother. Little Brother looked up and exchanged smiles with the dragonfly, who was one of his favorite playmates. Little Brother didn’t say a word and the dragonfly flew on because he could see how busy the little bee was.

At last, Little Brother had collected a big tummy full of nectar and all of his family were proud of his effort.