We enjoyed looking at Mrs G’s beekeeping equipment including the hive tool, the queen bee catcher box, bee brush and her very special gloves. She told us all about the special jobs that each bee has. The worker bees are the girls and they are the ones that fly from the hive to gather nectar and pollen and then pack it into their pollen basket which is on their back legs, before flying back to the hive and passing it to a fellow bee. The drones are the boy bees, however, unlike the worker bees, all they do is eat honey and sleep! In the Autumn the guard bees push the drones out of the hive and then guard the entrance to stop them returning during the winter months as they would eat up all of the honey!
Mrs G also told us how if a hive has to move, then the bees need to be moved at least 3 miles away as they can travel up to 3 miles away from their original hive in search of plants and flowers. After 24 hours of staying put in their hive, they can then be safely be released by the bee keeper. The bees then very cleverly circle above their new location in order to memorise the new area.
We made our own bee watering station to put in our early years garden, as sometimes bees get exhausted because their wings are so small and the pollen can become too heavy for them, so they need a good place to rest and have a drink. What a lot we know about bees now and how we need them to pollinate our fruit trees? Our most important job is helping to protect them in the environment!
We had fun using potatoes, paint and pens to create beautiful bee paintings.
Finally, after weeks of training, sports day was finally upon us and what great fun we had running in all of our races and showing off our great team work.
Our topic next week is caterpillars.
