Bee Treats

Recently our church youth group had an activity that had a Beehive/Bee theme.  I was asked to bring refreshments and was finding it hard to come up with any good/easy ideas. As I was pondering I got a bee in my bonnet and thought, "Hmmm, what could I make with Honeycomb cereal."  Of course whenever I think of cereal and treats, I think of rice crispy treats.  So I modified that recipe to use Honeycomb and decorated the tops of the treats with these cute little (and easy to do) m&m bees.  It was one of those things that turned out WAAAAY BETTER than I ever imagined.

Bee Treats

1/4 cup butter
1 bag miniature marshmallows
6 cups Honeycomb cereal
1 cup frozen m&m's
Few drops yellow food coloring (optional)

Before you start, open the bag of m&m's and pick out all of the brown and yellow ones - you'll need these to make your bees!!  Put the rest in the freezer to stir into your Honeycomb treats later.

In a large saucepan melt the butter over low heat. Add the marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat (if you decide to make some of your treats yellow - now is the time to stir in that yellow food coloring).

Pour over the Honeycomb cereal in a very large bowl. Stir until well coated.

Quickly, before the goo starts to set, stir in your frozen m&m's. Notice there are no yellow or brown m&m's left!

Using a buttered spatula or wax paper evenly and firmly press the mixture into 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan coated with cooking spray. Cool.

At this point I also made a batch of yellow colored treats (with no m&m's mixed in and not to be decorated with bees) just to make sure I had plenty of treats for the occassion.

Here is the yellow goo (with food coloring added).

Being poured over the Honeycomb.

Pressed into the pan.

Here are the pans of unadorned treats.  I made two batches of the m&m kind, beecause I knew there would be about 22 girls at the activity.

After they have cooled cut them into squares.  I got 12 squares per pan.

All right, it's time to make some bees!! I found this picture and instructions to help me out.

Bees

Lots of yellow and brown m&m's
1 bag sliced almonds
Small candy sprinkles (for the eye pupils)
Toothpick
Tweezers
Frosting (either a white canned frosting, or you can whip up a quick batch by creaming 1/4 cup shortening and 2 cups confectioners sugar until smooth, then mixing in 2 1/2 T. milk and 1/2 t. vanilla until smooth and stiff - about 5 minutes)  I made my own frosting because I like the texture and super white color.

First make the eyes (as you can imagine this was the most tedious part of the whole process) by using a toothpick to dab 2 small dots of frosting on a brown m&m.  Use tweezers to set 1 candy sprinkle on top of the frosting and press in place.  Repeat until you have enough cute little bee faces for your treats.

Phew, the tedious part is done! Now it's time to assemble the bees. First, using a star tip, pipe a mound of frosting on top of the Honeycomb square.

Next start building your bee.  Start with a yellow m&m at the bottom, next a brown, then another yellow. . .

Carefully put a little brown face at the top.

Give him 2 little almond slices for wings - bzzzzzzzzzz.

Here are a side and back view.

Repeat until all of your treats look un-bee-lievable!

Then take them to your activity. . .you'll be all the buzz ;)