Sunday we had the wonderful opportunity to have a honey bee tour at the home of some people from our church who have a honey bee farm. In preparation for our trip we spent some time this week talking about bees and doing bee activities.
Matching uppercase and lowercase letters. The bees needed to find their flower to get their pollen and nectar.
Matching numbers to their corresponding dots.
Now she is putting them in numeric order so they can fly back to their hive.
Emily was so excited to see the bees. The kids played and waited patiently for everyone to arrive so we could go see the bees.
Then we were off to see the bees. These bees are in an observation box so we could see them up close.
We learned all kinds of interesting things about the bee. Can you spot the queen bee? Look close, she has a white dot on her. The queen bee lays around 1500 eggs a day. She is always surrounded by a circle of bees that take care of her every need. They bring her food and water and even remove her waste for her. The females bees do all the work in the hive...sounds about right!
We learned about how the honey bees change and develop. Apparently, they go through a metamorphosis similar to a butterfly.
Playing in pollen!!!
Then it was time to visit the bees at their hive. First the bees were smoked so that the hive could be disturbed. Apparently, the smoke makes the bees think the hive is on fire. The bees eat a lot so they can survive for a while if the hive is destroyed and then are unable to bend and move in the way they need to to sting.
We got to hold the drones (male bees) they don't have stingers. She said they tickled.
Here is Jeff in the bee suit with the bees.
Then we learned how the honey is taken out of the hive and how the bees wax is made into candles.
We had so much fun and learned a lot. After we saw the bees we had a cook out and made smores...yummy!!!
We had a great time on our honey bee tour.
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