WILMINGTON — The Brandywine Zoo is buzzing with excitement over its Bee Sweet Valentine fundraising campaign.

The zoo needs the public’s help naming at least 250 bees in its beehive exhibit. For a donation of $10, you can name a bee after your sweetie or a mealworm after your ex. For $100, name up to five bees and the names you submit will be entered into a drawing to name the queen bee of the hive. Only first names or nicknames will be accepted.

The Brandywine Zoo will publish the names of the bees and mealworms on its website, brandywinezoo.org, on the Bee Sweet campaign page. Publishing is optional.

All donations to the fundraiser will go to support the zoo, the bee colony and planting pollinator habitats at the zoo in the spring.

Fun facts:

Mealworms: Mealworms are high in protein. Many of the zoo’s animals, including the scarlet ibis, bearded dragon and golden lion tamarins, love the gross but tasty mealworms.

Honeybees: Bees play a vital role in the ecosystem in Delaware and around the world. They pollinate approximately 130 agricultural crops in the U.S. including fruit, fiber, nut and vegetable crops.

Bee foragers must collect nectar from about 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey and the average honeybee will make only one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.

A honeybee can fly for up to six miles, and as fast as 15 miles per hour, which means it would have to fly around 90,000 miles — almost 470 times from the zoo to the furthest point south in Delaware and back again — to make one pound of honey.

Brandywine Zoo is located at 1001 North Park Drive, Wilmington. For general information, call 302-571-7747 or go to brandywinezoo.org. Check the website for the latest information for guests.

The Brandywine Zoo is managed by the Delaware Division of Parks and Recreation with the support of the Delaware Zoological Society.