The Magic School Bus In a Beehive
Original airdate: September 14th, 1996
Subject: Bees
Focus Student(s): Tim, Wanda, Phoebe
Tim and Wanda delivering honey for Tim's grandfather goes awry when a bee causes them to crash and lose all the jars. He decides to ask Ms. Frizzle to take a field trip to his grandfather's bee farm, but she decides to detour to a wild beehive.
Producers Segment
The male producer answers the questions while he and Liz work on a bee farm.
Tropes
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Tim asks Ms. Frizzle to go to his uncle's farm in a pleading tone.
- Bears Are Bad News: The black bear who wrecks the beehive just to get some yummy honey.
- Chekhov's Gun: The flower field that Tim and Wanda found ends up helping the wild bees make enough honey to survive the winter. Tim communicates the field's location using a bee dancing guide that Ms. Frizzle provides.
- Chekhov's Skill: The class decides to put the nectar-gathering and stirring skills they've acquired over the past twenty minutes, into gathering enough honey to replace what Tim and Wanda lost.
- A Day in the Limelight: The only episode to focus on Tim alone.
- Human Traffic Jam: Twice. Wanda calls Tim out of stopping like that the second time it happens.
- Hurricane of Puns: As the caller in the Producer segment puts it, "I've never heard so many bad bee jokes!"
- Lame Pun Reaction: Courtesy of Carlos: "You're a Phoe-Bee! Ha ha! And you're a Friz-Bee!" As usual, all characters minus Ms. Frizzle call him out for it.
- Made Out to Be a Jerkass: Tim in wanting to finish the job that his grandfather gave him: to deliver honey. It's not his fault that Ms. Frizzle thought it would be better to visit a wild hive instead, since he wanted to visit his grandfather's farm.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: As Tim puts it, the class— actually Liz with an out of control bee-bus— led the bear to the beehive, and the bear took the honey that the bees need for the winter. They quickly fix the situation.
- Product Delivery Ordeal: The story of this episode is set up by Tim and Wanda delivering cartloads of jars of honey for Tim's family's bee farm. They crash and smash most of the delivery, leading to the episode's plot of learning about how bees work and how honey is made so that they can replace it.
- Rule of Three: As the kids gather nectar, they come across a slew of problems:
- First, bees are very protective of their honey, unless other bees are entering the hives.
- Second, most of the flowers are drained of nectar because they're the last flowers of fall.
- Third, bees can't carry a lot of nectar. Even the bus's carrying capacity only fills a few honeycombs. The bees thus have to make a lot of trips.
- Soapbox Sadie: Phoebe, as usual, about how the bees need the honey. The "soapbox" part is that Tim is asking to get more from his grandfather's farm, and beekeeping farms are built on keeping the bees happy.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Wanda makes it clear that she hates the cold, hence why she's not looking forward to winter. Tim then jokes she needs to get her long underwear because a frost is coming.
