{"id":27020,"date":"2026-04-17T10:18:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T14:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/?p=27020"},"modified":"2026-04-17T10:18:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T14:18:03","slug":"free-pattern-tiny-bees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/free-pattern-tiny-bees\/","title":{"rendered":"free pattern: Tiny Bees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m thrilled to announce my new realistic bumblebee pattern, Tiny Bees! <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/tinybees_all2.jpg\" alt=\"Tiny Bees amigurumi crochet pattern by PlanetJune\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Full of colour and slightly larger than life-sized, Tiny Bees are the perfect addition to any crocheted flower arrangement. With just a few rounds of crochet, a couple of colour changes, and simple no-sew wings, your little bee friend will come together in no time at all.<\/p>\n<h2>Inspiration<\/h2>\n<p>Since I started planting native flowers to attract pollinators to my garden, I&#8217;ve paid more attention to how many different types of bees I see. (Did you know there are over 400 species of bee in Ontario alone?!) My little bee friends and I happily coexist all summer &#8211; as I harvest my beans, they buzz around me and sip nectar from the bean flowers while they pollinate next week&#8217;s beans! I miss my little garden helpers in winter, so I thought I&#8217;d commemorate them with a realistic bee crochet pattern.<\/p>\n<h2>About the Design<\/h2>\n<p>Made in standard worsted weight yarn, Tiny Bees are a little larger than a real bee, but they&#8217;re the perfect size to accompany a vase of crocheted flowers, or add to a crocheted potted plant as an adorable embellishment!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/tinybees2.jpg\" alt=\"Tiny Bees amigurumi crochet pattern by PlanetJune\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Designing an amigurumi this small was quite a challenge &#8211; every stitch counts at this stage! I wanted this to be a very simple and unfussy design, but with enough detail to look like a real bee, not a cartoon. <\/p>\n<p>It took a lot of tweaking to come up with a design that&#8217;s shaped like a bee while staying as small as possible, and combining PlanetJune simplicity with accurate bee markings. But I&#8217;m so happy with the result &#8211; a realistic no-fuss design in a tiny little body!<\/p>\n<h2>Meet the Bumblebees<\/h2>\n<p>I based my basic yellow-and-black bumblebee on the American Bumblebee (<em>Bombus pensylvanicus<\/em>) and the online version of this bee pattern is completely free for you to use, or you can say thanks with a donation.<\/p>\n<p>As I like to reward people who support my work, the PDF version, available for a donation of any size, also includes <strong>two more bees<\/strong> with different markings! <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/tinybees_all.jpg\" alt=\"Tiny Bees amigurumi crochet pattern by PlanetJune\" \/><em>L-R: yellow-and-black, spotted, white-tailed bees<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A spotted bee with the distinctive black spot on its back, like most of the common bumblebees and carpenter bees that visit my garden here in Canada. I based mine on the Common Eastern Bumblebee (<em>Bombus impatiens<\/em>). <\/li>\n<li>And a white-tailed bumblebee, as all the bumblebees I remember from my youth in the UK had a cute little white bum! I based mine on the White-Tailed Bumblebee (<em>Bombus lucorum<\/em>) and Buff-Tailed Bumblebee (<em>Bombus terrestris<\/em>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I hope that at least one of these bees will speak to you, but if you have a favourite bumblebee species, you can mix and match the markings in the pattern and change the colours to create your favourite bee.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to make a closer-to-life-sized bee, just use finer yarn and a smaller hook &#8211; easy peasy! (See my <a href=\"\/scaling\">Scaling Amigurumi<\/a> article for the appropriate hook size to use with any size yarn.)<\/p>\n<h2>Make a Bee!<\/h2>\n<p>As always with my donationware patterns, the basic (yellow-and-black) bee pattern is free for you to use online, and you need only donate if you&#8217;d like to thank me for my work in creating it, or if you&#8217;d like the easy-to-print PDF version that also includes the two additional bee patterns. <\/p>\n<p>Your support means the world to me &#8211; every dollar helps to support me so I can continue to create new designs.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/blog\/free-crochet-patterns\/tiny-bees\">Go to the free yellow-and-black Tiny Bees pattern &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Or jump straight to donate:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/shop\/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&#038;cPath=26&#038;products_id=433\">Order the Tiny Bees pattern with all 3 bees &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>And why not grab one (or all!) of my crocheted flower patterns (pictured below) to accompany your bees?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/flowers\">PlanetJune flower crochet patterns &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Not ready to make your bee yet? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ravelry.com\/patterns\/library\/tiny-bees-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Add this pattern to your Ravelry queue<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ravelry.com\/badges\/redirect?p=tiny-bees-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/api.ravelry.com\/badges\/projects?p=tiny-bees-2&#038;t=.svg\" style=\"border: none;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/flowers_and_bees.jpg\" alt=\"A vase filled with a variety of cheerful crocheted flowers and Tiny Bees, all crochet patterns by June Gilbank\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I feel like Tiny Bees are the crocheted flower addition we never knew we needed! Don&#8217;t you agree?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m so pleased with how well these tiny cuties turned out, and how cheerful they look as they hover over their crocheted flowers. I hope they&#8217;ll brighten your day too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m thrilled to announce my new realistic bumblebee pattern, Tiny Bees! Full of colour and slightly larger than life-sized, Tiny Bees are the perfect addition to any crocheted flower arrangement. With just a few rounds of crochet, a couple of colour changes, and simple no-sew wings, your little bee friend will come together in no [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27020"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27063,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27020\/revisions\/27063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}