The bending strength characteristics and local deformation behaviors of honeycomb sandwich composites were investigated using three-point bending experiment and finite element simulation with a real model of honeycomb core. Two kinds of cell sizes of honeycomb core, two kinds of skin layer thicknesses, perfect bonding specimen as well as initial delamination specimen were used for analysis of stress and deformation behaviors of honeycomb sandwich beams. Various failure modes such as skin layer yielding, interfacial delamination, core shear deformation and local buckling were considered. Its simulation results were very comparable to the experimental ones. Consequently, cell size of honeycomb core and skin layer thickness had dominant effects on the bending strength and deformation behaviors of honeycomb sandwich composites. Specimens of large core cell size and thin skin layer showed that bending strength decreased by $30~68\%$.