We are crazy about bees!

Next up, learning about bees! 

Through our nonfiction books and videos, we learned that bees are really important for pollination. 

Female bees visit from flower to flower drinking nectar and collecting pollen from the anthers in their pollen baskets and on their hairy bodies. As they visit another flower, some of the pollen falls off their bodies and sticks to the pistil on the flower, causing cross-pollination. This pollen helps the egg cells in the flower to create seeds! 

We looked at lilies to see each part up close.

To help us understand this process better, we did a fun activity! 

Each child received a pair of pipe cleaner legs and antenna for their finger. They would each drink "nectar" (juice box!) from their flower and then fly to the middle of the table where three flowers with different colors of "pollen" would latch onto their legs. As they go from flower to flower, the pollen would stick to their legs and spread from one flower to the next.

Next, we learned about where the bees take the nectar and pollen: the hive!

The hive is made of cells that the bees create used the wax they made with their bodies. The cells are six-sided shapes called hexagons. The queen uses some cells to lay an egg. Other cells are used to store nectar/honey when after regurgitating the nectar they drank from the flowers. After learning about the interworking of a beehive, we decided to create our own in the hallway.

Each student got an egg carton of six "cells" and they decided how they wanted to fill them using different materials. 

Students also created bees to have flying around our hive in the hallway. 

Our finished hive:

Once the students were sufficiently bee crazy, we went to see Mr. Pittman, a local beekeeper to see all of the information we've put into action! 

He took out one of the panels and brought it over to us in a glass case so we could take a closer look.

It was so cool to see a hive up close!

This is where Mr. Pittman extracts the honey from his hives. 

Finally, it was time to taste the honey! Mmmmhmmm! 

We learned that the honey sold in the stores can be up to 50% corn syrup (even though its not on the ingredients list) but the honey he sells is 100% pure honey--and 100% delicious!