5. Clay to make bee or you could use a pre made bee  

6. Ribbon  

9. Small flower or flowers. The one I used was from Dollar Tree in their fall line.

I started out by wrapping my rope around the bottom of my container and gluing the rope to itself as I went.  I did not glue the rope to the container, because I wanted to remove the container when I was finished with it.  If you want to leave the container in for more support, then you can glue the rope directly to the container.  I continued to wrap my rope up and around my container until I reached the top of my container.  My container became smaller at the bottom, so I actually started half way up my container.  Once I reached the top of my container, I free handed the shape of my bee hive.  I gradually moved my rope more inward as I wrapped my rope around, gluing it in place as I went.  I was using some left-over rope from a previous project, and actually ran out of rope for the very top.  Since I knew I was going to be placing a bow at the top of my bee hive I was okay with the hole at the top.  The bow covers the hole nicely, and I can always add more rope later on to finish it off if I chose too.   

I then removed my container.  If you wish to also remove your container, then glass or plastic containers work best.  Hot glue does not stick as well to these surfaces, and can be removed pretty easily.  I then used some black acrylic paint to paint a good size circle in the front of my bee hive.  A dabbing motion works better than the typically painting brush strokes against the rope. This will be the opening or hole on your bee hive.  You can make this as big or small as you like.  I then cut some thin twine to go around this black hole, and glued it in place with hot glue.   

I then tested two different methods to make my honey drippings.  The first test was to apply the hot glue drips, then paint it yellow when the glue was dry.  This gave the honey a more mat look, and the paint brush stokes showed more.  The second test was to paint the drips with yellow paint first, then apply the hot glue on top of these painted on drips.  Since the hot glue was transparent the yellow paint should show through the dried glue. This method showed less paint brush stokes, and the honey looked more shinny.  On the test cardboard I liked the second method much better.  When applied to my bee hive and honey dipper the yellow paint did not show through as much.  So, I ended up painting the yellow paint over the dried hot glue drips as well.  I applied this honey drips to the top of the honey dipper, and like it was coming out of the front of the bee hive hole.  Feel free to apply more or less honey drips to suit your liking.   

Next, I made and attached a simple bow to the top of my bee hive.  It was still missing something, so I decided to add a small sunflower I had picked up from Dollar Tree last year in their Fall décor section.  This really added a lot to the little bee hive.  I attached these two pieces with hot glue.  You could also use two different types of ribbon in your bow or use a different type of flower as well.  Even adding some raffia to the bow would look nice.   

Lastly, I decided to make a little bee out of clay.  You could also purchase a pre made bee if you do not wish to try and make one.  I started off by making a head and body for my bee.  The head was just a round ball.  For the body I made more of a cylinder shape, and pinched the bottom to make it pointy like his stinger.  I then combined the head and body.  Next, I rolled out three very thin black pieces of clay for his stripes, and pressed them onto his body.  I used a tooth pick to help me smooth things together for a better bond.  I then made four little gray wings and attached them at the bottom of my bee.  The last step was to make his antennas.  I rolled out two very small pieces of black clay, then rolled them at the top.  I had not worked with clay in a while and was a little messing with my work.  The clay I used was also just some cheap kids clay I had from when I was little.  Many of the colors have pieces of other colors mixed in.  Since the bee is pretty little most people probably will not notice some of these spots and mistakes.  My camera does a great job of picking up little details and really shows off my imperfections.  I just used hot glue to glue this little bee to my bee hive.  Feel free to make more bees to attach to your bee hive.