Maya the Bee



A well-loved German book created by Waldemar Bonsels, which was made into an Animated Adaptation, as well as a live action film. Starring live insects.

Maya the Bee follows the life of Maya, a honeybee and her friends Willy, also a honeybee, and Flip, a grasshopper.

The animated The Adventures of Maya the Honeybee is probably the best-known incarnation. It was originally created in Japan between 1975 and 1979 with a total of 107 episodes, but only 65 of these were ever broadcast in North America during its run in the early 90s (and even then, some of those were taken from the later "New Adventures..." series). The series itself has been dubbed into over 40 languages all around the world and has even spawned a number of video games.

The premise of the anime was that Maya was tasked to collect pollen for her hive, but she ended up doing such a good job that she gathered all of the pollen around her hive, and there was none left. The queen bee then sent Maya further away from the hive in search of more pollen.

A new Maya cartoon is in the works, with Andrea Libman in the title role.


 * Animal Talk: Despite being Funny Insects, the main characters never talk to humans. It can be presumed they're communicating using some form of insect speech.
 * Specifically, they communicate through complicated dances.
 * Bragging Theme Tune
 * Four-Legged Insect: Just look at the page image.
 * Funny Animal: For the most part, insects walk around as bipeds and act just like humans. Some of them even wear clothes.
 * Gone Horribly Right: Maya's pollen collecting skills.
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes: Overlaps with No Export for You - Maya, not even the 65 broadcasted episodes, was never released on VHS or DVD in North America.
 * Mouse World: A world from the perspective of a bee is a very large world indeed.
 * Nice Hat: Flip has one.
 * No Export for You: The sad fate of the 42 unaired episodes in North America.