Waldemar Bonsels (21 February 1880 – 31 July 1952) was a German writer and creator of Maya the Bee.

Bonsels's most famous work is the children's book Die Biene Maja und ihre Abenteuer (The Adventures of Maya the Bee).

This work served the basis for a Japanese animated television series Maya the Honey Bee in the mid-1970s, as well as a Croatian opera for children written by Bruno Bjelinski.

[1] Himmelsvolk (People in the Sky) is a sequel with a more philosophical focus, describing in mystical terms the unity of all creation and its relationship to God.

He wrote a number of novels and shorter stories dealing with love as Eros and the higher level of divine love in the spirit of romanticism (Eros und die Evangelien, Menschenwege, Narren und Helden, etc.