Crochet Bee Amigurumi Free Pattern

Sew two flat white wings onto this crochet bee amigurumi and it is finished. Black and yellow bands work in as you go, so the only assembly is the wings.

Alternating black and yellow bands carry this crochet bee amigurumi free pattern, worked as colour changes every two rounds so the stripes stay even as the body widens. The shape is a rounded oval with the head shaped straight into it. Two white wings work flat and sew onto the back, overlapping slightly at the centre. Change colour at the same point each round, since letting the join drift puts a visible seam up one side of the body.

Crochet Bee Amigurumi

Cotton yarn at 2mm makes a small, tight, hard-wearing little object, and that is exactly what a keychain needs to be. The bee body is fifteen rounds, the wings are two rounds each, and the whole thing attaches to a keyring at the end. Thirty bees for a birthday party favour table, twelve for a school fair, twenty for a hen weekend — this is the pattern for that. Small size means fast work, and fast work means you can actually finish the quantity you committed to. The colour-change striping looks more involved than it is once you have done the first two swaps and found your rhythm.

Time and Volume Math

• One bee, body and wings assembled: forty-five minutes to one hour for a confident maker, closer to ninety minutes the first time.
• Twelve bees: ten to twelve hours across the batch. Plan for a weekend plus two evenings.
• Thirty bees: twenty-five to thirty hours. Five days at five or six hours a day, or two and a half weeks at an hour per evening.
• Latest start for twelve by a Friday: the previous Saturday, working two hours each day.
• Yarn for twelve: approximately 180 to 220 metres of yellow cotton, 80 to 100 metres of black, and 80 to 100 metres of white or off-white for the wings. Buy at least ten percent extra.
• Time per unit drops sharply after the fifth or sixth bee. The colour changes in particular become automatic and stop costing you thinking time.

Pieces List

• Body: 1 per bee, worked in yellow and black with colour-change striping
• Wings: 2 per bee, worked in white or off-white
• Keyring: 1 per bee, attached at the top of the head after assembly

The Pattern

Bee Body

Start with yellow cotton yarn and a 2 mm hook. All rounds are continuous unless a bullet says otherwise.

• Rnd 1: Make a magic ring, ch 1, sc 6 into the ring. (6)
• Rnd 2: 2 sc in every st around. Place a stitch marker in the first sc of this round and move it up each round. (12)
• Rnd 3: (sc 1, inc) x 6. (18)
• Rnd 4: (sc 2, inc) x 6. (24) — After Rnd 4 the piece should lie flat on the table without curling or doming. A flat disc at 24 sts is correct. If it cups, your tension is tight and will correct itself over the straight rounds coming next.
• Rnd 5: Sc 24 around. (24)
• Switch to black yarn.
• Rnd 6: Sc 24 around. (24)
• Rnd 7: Sl st into the first sc of Rnd 6, ch 1, sc in the same st. Sc in every remaining st around. (24)
• Switch to yellow yarn.
• Rnd 8: Sl st to join yellow, ch 1, sc in the same st. Sc in every remaining st around. (24)
• Rnd 9: Sl st to join, ch 1, sc in the same st. Sc in every remaining st around. Sl st to close. (24) — Pause here to insert the safety eyes before continuing. The body is still open and stuffing-free. This is the last good moment.
• Insert safety eyes now: position them with the colour seam at the back as a guide for centre-front. Lock the backings on firmly.
• Switch to black yarn.
• Rnds 10 and 11: Sl st to join black, then sc 24 around for 2 complete rounds. (24 each)
• Switch to yellow yarn.
• Rnd 12: Sl st to join yellow, sc in every st around. Sl st into the first sc. (24)
• Rnd 13: Ch 1, then (sc 2, sc2tog) x 6 around. (18)
• Rnd 14: (sc 1, sc2tog) x 6 around. (12)
• Stuff the body firmly now with polyfill before the opening closes further.
• Rnd 15: Sc2tog x 6. (6)
• Cut yarn leaving a long tail. Thread onto a tapestry needle and weave through the front loops of the remaining 6 sts. Pull tight and close the hole. Bury the tail inside.

Wings, Make 2

Use white or off-white cotton. Each wing is worked in joined rounds, not continuous.

• Rnd 1: Make a magic ring, ch 1, hdc 10 into the ring. Sl st into the first hdc to join. (10)
• Rnd 2: Ch 1, then work the following shaping sequence around the ring: 2 hdc in the next st, 2 hdc in each of the next 2 sts, dc 2, 2 tr in each of the next 2 sts, dc 2, 2 hdc in each of the next 3 sts. Sl st, ch 1, cut yarn leaving a long sewing tail. (26)
• Weave in the starting tail on each wing. Leave the finishing tail long for sewing on.
• Make 2.

Assembly-Line Running Order

For a batch of twelve or more, do not build one complete bee at a time. Piece-type batching cuts down on constant yarn swaps and keeps your tension more consistent across the batch.

1. Make all bodies first — all 12 or 24 or 30, start to finish, including stuffing and closing. Stack them.
2. Make all wings next — 2 per bee, so 24 or 48 or 60 wings in white. Work through them all in one sitting; the two-round repeat is fast once you are in it.
3. Attach safety eyes to any bodies that still need them. Check every body before moving on.
4. Sew wings onto bodies — pin both wings on each bee before sewing either, so you can check symmetry across the whole batch.
5. Attach keyrings last, after all other assembly is done.

The one task that slows batch assembly most is untangling wings that have been piled loose. Store finished wings in a small bag or keep them clipped in pairs so you are not sorting forty identical white ovals at the end.

Safety Eyes

• Insert the safety eyes at the end of Round 9, before stuffing, while the body is still fully open. This is stated in the pattern above but worth repeating here because it is the step most often skipped in a batch and most impossible to fix afterwards.
• For party favours, treat bags, or any recipient under three: skip safety eyes and embroider instead, using black yarn worked as a small vertical satin stitch through the head from the inside before stuffing. A sewn eye cannot be pulled out. This also applies to any setting where you cannot control who ultimately receives the finished bee.

Stuffing

• Firm throughout the body. This is a keychain, so it will be dropped, sat on, thrown into bags, and generally handled harder than any shelf display piece. Under-stuffed keychains go soft and lose their shape within a few weeks of daily use. Pack the polyfill in firmly before Round 14 closes the opening too far, and use a pencil or the blunt end of a crochet hook to push stuffing into the lower section of the body while you still have room.
• No stuffing in the wings. They are flat and meant to stay flat.

The Character Dial: Naturalistic or Candy-Coloured

• Naturalistic. Switch the yellow to a warm golden amber and the black to a deep charcoal rather than true black. Use off-white for the wings rather than bright white. The result reads as an actual bee rather than a cartoon, and it works better as a gift for adults. Skip the keyring and attach a short length of jute twine instead, turning it into a bag charm or a plant pot ornament.
• Candy-coloured. Work the body in a bright acid yellow and a saturated cobalt or royal blue instead of black for the stripes. Use iridescent or shiny white cotton for the wings if you can find it. Attach a rainbow or novelty keyring clip. This version is the one that works for a child’s birthday and looks intentional rather than like an error. You can push further and make a batch where every bee has a different stripe colour — yellow-green, yellow-orange, yellow-pink — keeping the body base yellow throughout but varying the contrast. Spread on a table at a party they look like a family.

Colourways

• Classic Hive. Warm golden yellow, true black stripes, cream wings. The most recognisable version.
• Bumblebee Stripe. Soft orange-yellow, dark navy stripes, bright white wings. A slightly warmer, more autumn-friendly read.
• Ghost Bee. Pale cream body, pale grey stripes, white wings. Very small and quiet; works well as a bag charm for someone who does not usually wear colour.
• Midsummer. Saturated yellow, deep forest green stripes, white wings. Unusual enough to photograph distinctively without being harder to make.

Display Ideas

• Clipped to a zipper pull on a bag or backpack, which is where it lives and where it will be seen.
• Hung on a small hook inside a locker or on a pegboard. The keyring means it hangs without any extra hardware.
• As a gift tag tied to a present through the keyring, which the recipient keeps as the gift.

After the Season

Cotton holds up well in storage — it does not felt, does not shed, and does not compress the way wool can. The main risk is the keyring rusting if stored somewhere damp. Remove the keyring before long-term storage, keep the bee in a dry box or bag, and fit a new ring when it comes back out. A bee that has been on a keychain for a year may have a flattened side from pressure; steam it lightly and reshape by hand while warm.

Quick Answers

• What size does this come out at? At 2 mm with fine cotton, the body is roughly 4 to 5 cm across, so the finished bee with wings is small enough to sit in a palm. If you want a larger version, go up to a 3.5 mm hook with DK cotton and all the counts stay the same — it just scales up to around 7 or 8 cm.
• Can I use acrylic instead of cotton? Yes, but cotton is the right choice for a keychain. It is stiffer, holds its shape under repeated handling, and does not stretch or distort when the keyring pulls at the top. A fine acrylic at this hook size goes limp faster. If cotton is unavailable, a cotton-acrylic blend is a reasonable second option.
• The colour changes look messy on the inside. Does it matter? Not at all. The inside of a stuffed amigurumi body is invisible and the carried yarn just adds a little extra structure to the wall of the piece. What matters on the outside is that the join sits at the back, which is why the specifically says to use the seam as a reference when placing the eyes.