This week Sarah from Bee Yourself came and spoke to the children about the importance of bees. Through this visit we learnt so much about the native stingless bees that we have at Kindy. Bees make honey for their food and pollinate the flowers that give us fruit and vegetables.
Sarah told us that in each hive there is a queen bee that lays between 300- 400 eggs each day! The queen is much bigger than the other bees in her hive, in fact she is so big that she can't fly. Then there are drone bees (the boy bees) and the worker bees (the girls) who do all the work including guarding the hive, building the cells, looking after the baby bees, and finding nectar and pollen.
We all went outside to take a closer look at our stingless beehive. Sarah had some special tools to help her open the hive. The bottom box and mid box are home to the babies and eggs. Sarah added a top box to this hive during her visit so that we can harvest some honey in the future. This section is called the Honey Box or Super,
We noticed all the bees flying around when the hive was disturbed and how they landed on Sarah and tickled her. Thank goodness that these bees are stingless.
We stayed calm and quiet during the process and so did all the bees.
We tasted the honey, and it was delicious! We have so much to thank bees for, including honey and all the healthy fruit we eat each day.
After Sarah’s visit some children created bees using craft materials to hang in their beehive collage, others were inspired to make their own beehive using playdough.
Thanks Sarah for an informative visit!
