Bees Vs. Wasps

How To Play Bees Vs. Wasps

This is a fun run around church wide game I play with our middle-schoolers. The amount of nerf guns, pool noodles, and wasps totally depend on how big your group is, so you can experiment with whatever works best for your group. I'll just explain how I run the game with a group of 15 kids and 2 leaders.

Object of the game:
Bees have to find the hidden nerf guns and shoot the wasp/s 3 times to kill the wasp and win the game.

Teams:
Assign the youth to be bees, 1 leader to be the queen bee, and 1 or 2 leaders be the wasps.

Setup and prep:
Before youth arrive, hide 2 fully loaded nerf guns (I just use cheap small 3 shot nerf guns) somewhere in the church building. Depending on the age group, you can make them easy or difficult to find. Give the wasp leaders each a pool noodle, and that's all you need to do for prep and setup.

Intro story/ game explanation:
(this isn't necessary but it's kind of a fun-fact that gives the game a little context and helps make sense of the game play)
Here is how i introduce the game to our group: "Bees are fairly small and work together in a hive community. They make delicious honey, and serve their queen. Wasps, on the other hand are bigger and tend to be bullies to the bees. But did you know that bees can actually fight off wasps and sometimes even kill them by turning up the heat in their bee hive? It's true! When bees get attacked they stay together and create a lot of friction in their hive. And this friction raises the temperature a lot! At first, the wasps get a little stunned. But with more heat, they get dizzy. And if the bees keep creating so much heat, the wasp will eventually pass out! In this game, you guys (talking to the youth) are all bees, and this is your your hive (we use the main stage of the sanctuary as the hive or the safe zone). This is your queen bee whom you serve (point to the leader who will be the queen bee). And, these wasps are out get you (point to the leaders holding pool noodles). Your mission as the bees is to find 2 "heat ray guns" hidden somewhere in this church (explain that they are nerf guns). If you find a gun, you need to find the wasps and shoot them each 3 times. The 1st shot will disarm the wasp (they have to drop the pool noodle, but they can still run and tag kids). The 2nd shot will slow down the wasp (they can no longer run but they can still tag). And a 3rd final shot will finish off the big bad wasp!
If a bee gets stung by a wasp (either hit with a pool noodle or tagged), the bee needs to walk back to the bee hive and do an act of service to the queen before she grants you her healing royal jelly so that you can recover. (The youth have to go to the leader who is the queen and they will give them a task to perform before they can get back in the game. Have fun with this. We make the kids do pushups, sing a song, recite a bible verse, say 3 nice things about your youth pastor, etc.) Once they perform their task, they're healed and can get back in the game).

Game Play:
Everyone starts in the same room (the room you will use as the bee hive or safe zone). Allow the bees a 20 second head start as they run out and start searching for the nerf guns. Then release the wasps to go tag the bees. Whenever a bee is tagged, they go back to the hive and the queen gives them a funny task. After they perform their task, they can join the game again. The game is over when the wasps have been shot 3 times each.

Game could be played with a group as small as 10 or as big you want. However, with a bigger group you would simply need more nerf guns, more wasps, and a larger playing area. Playing it in the dark could be fun because players can hide, but you would still need some light to see where you're shooting the nerf darts... Or, you could get glow in the dark nerf darts!

Themes

bullying, team work

Added by
Rick Penner
on 3 April 2018