Mrs G, the Beekeeper, visited on Tuesday dressed in her orange bee suit and told us all about her hives and honey bees, and the important jobs they do. We saw lots of photographs of her hives and the million bees within them, and saw a close up photograph of her first queen bee – all the worker bees were busy looking after her!
We enjoyed looking at Mrs G’s beekeeping equipment including the hive tool, smoker, 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 will guard the entrance to the hive and not allow them back in as over the winter months they would eat all of the honey. The highlight was tasting Mrs G’s honey that her bees made- it was un-bee-lievable!
We made our own bee watering station to put in Reception’s 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!
Our topic next week is wild animals.
