I need to form. bumble bees to decorate a baby shower cake. The bees were requested for the cake. I don't know whether to form them out of fondant or small cupcakes, cookies etc. decorated with royal frosting? I'll be using fondant to make a picture frame on top of a square cake and will decorate the frame with the bees. What ideas do you have for the wings, etc. I definitely want to do 3-d bees, not just drawing the design and filling in with frosting.

I'm an running short on time, since the cake was just requested and it is needed for January 29th. Any ideas will be helpful.

I have made bees from both fondant and royal icing. Using fondant I simply rolled yellow and balck balls to create the head and body, attached them together with water and used food coloring to paint on stripes. Using royal icing I simply piped and decorated them onto wax paper and lifted them off when dry. You can even attach them to a wire so they appear to be flying around the cake.

Personally, I would do the bees out of fondant, if only little bees are needed. If larger bees can be used, I think there was a post not too long ago with bee cupcakes (also had ladybugs).

Try doing a search in the gallery.

The winds could be made from wafer paper..same concept as the butterflies. Here is a link to the butterfly instructions..might give you some insight:

http://www.cakecentral.com/article16-How-To-Make-Realistic-Edible-Butterflies.html