Maya is a small, cheerful and headstrong bee who is very curious. She experiences many adventures, and that starts right from her birth.
Maya the bee is born as the last bee in a large beehive near an abandoned ruin in the forest. She has many brothers and sisters. Miss Cassandra is a smart beekeeper who helps with the birth of the many new bees. It immediately becomes clear that Maya is a terribly curious little bee. The first thing she asks Miss Cassandra at her birth is, “Why did you name me Maya?” to which Cassandra replies, “For no reason, everyone just needs a name.”
On the day Maya is born, half of the bees in the beehive are supposed to swarm out, otherwise there won’t be enough space for all the bees. Maya learns a lot from Miss Cassandra on the first day of her life. She meets Willie, a bee who is very sweet, but not so smart. He is in the class for the second time.
“We bees are hard workers,” Miss Cassandra explains. “We collect honey every day, so it’s good to know which flowers are most suitable for that. I will teach you everything, and it’s important that you know who your enemies are. Take the hornet, for example, that’s our biggest enemy.”
The next day when Maya wakes up, panic breaks out in the hive. Too many bees have stayed in the hive, and the commotion causes the hive to become too warm and the honey to melt. This is, of course, a big disaster for the new eggs laid by the queen. The heat from the hive can only be cooled by the up and down movement of the wings of all the bees. Maya also does her best and notices that by moving her wings up and down, she is getting higher and higher in the air. It looks like flying! But she only gets her first flying lesson that afternoon.
She tells the whole beehive excitedly that she’s going to learn how to fly, and Miss Cassandra is going to teach her.
Then it’s time for Maya to learn to fly on her own, and she loves it. She collects honey and meets Flip the Grasshopper. Flip can’t stand still and has to jump around all the time. “That’s just what grasshoppers do!” he explains to Maya. He promises to help her if she gets into trouble. “And that’s definitely going to happen, because you’re so headstrong!” he adds.
As Maya flies around from poppy to tulip, she realizes that it’s much more fun to be outside and decides that she won’t go back to the hive.
“Why should I go back?” she asks herself. “I don’t find it at all pleasant there, and I don’t see the point of all that hard work. I’ll stay outside and have fun.”
It gets late and dark.
“There’s a beautiful flower where I’m going to sleep tonight.”
Flying around has made her so tired that she falls asleep right away and sleeps like a log.
