We have started talking about the invertebrate group of insects. Bees are another kind of insect. There are about 20,000 species of bees. Some of the ones we may be familiar with are honey bees, bumble bees, and sweat bees. Bees are found all continents except for Antarctica. Bees have two antenna and two pairs of wings. Bees live in colonies and may have up to 40,000 bees in them!
Honey bees are social and cooperative insects. The bees are organized into three types. Worker bees are the ones we often see flying around. They are female bees. Some jobs of the worker bees are to build honeycombs, collect pollen and nectar to feed the colony, keep the hive clean, and help to circulate air in the hive by beating their wings. The comb is made up of hexagonal shaped cells and are used to store nectar, pollen, and water. There is usually one queen in a hive and her job is to lay eggs. Insects go through metamorphosis. Bees go through four stages of development; egg, larvae, pupa, and adult bee. The male bees are called drones. The female bees store venom in a sac attached to their stingers.
The honey bee’s sense of smell helps them to find the flowers they need to collect nectar. As bees feed on the nectar inside of flowers, they get covered in pollen from the flower’s stamens. Some of this pollen will rub off on the pistil of the next flower it visits. This is how insects help flowers to pollinate. Bees store the collected nectar they get from the flowers in their special honey stomachs. When their stomachs are full of nectar they go back to the hive and regurgitate, or spit back out, the nectar into honey cells. Then they fan their wings to remove moisture. The nectar then changes and becomes honey. So bees are important, in what ways?
last week. The children could choose to make a bee puppet as well as play a matching game.
Here is the Beehive (finger rhyme)
Have the children count on their fingers.
Here is the beehive. Where are the bees?
Hidden away where nobody sees.
Watch and you’ll see them come out of the hive
One, two, three, four, five.
Buzzzzzzz…..all fly away!
Now that the children are buzzing with excitement, some of the children will break off and grab works from the other shelves. I always try to have plenty of works, which makes plenty of work for me. At night I am constantly filling our kitchen table (much to the dismay of my husband) and finding new and creative ways to engage the children, while helping them learn. So much fun!
