Geo Tots- Eco education for toddlers
Bees are facinating and powerful!
Below are some activities designed to help you and your Geo Tot understand bees, pollinating, and the power bees have in our own life cycle and food web.
Bees make plants possible!
Bees are critical to plant reproduction. Bees visit the flowers of plants to drink their nectar, and in the process, spread pollen from those flowers to other plants.
Beehives have their own air-conditioning!
Forager bees - the ones always on the go collecting nectar and pollen - also pick up water with their tongues. They can cool the hives by releasing that slurped-up water and by flapping their wings. If a bee gets too hot or too cold, she could die.
Try cooling down like a bee on a hot day. First note how warm or cold you feel. Now cover yourself with sprinkles of water and wave your arms as if they were a pair of wings. Do you feel cooler now?
Follow the bee game!
Learning about bees involves going outside! Explore the outdoors by watching bees visit nearby flowering plants. Pick one bee to follow, and see where she takes you! Look for the collections of pollen on the back of her legs and all over her body. Does she stay close to other bees? How many different flowers does she visit in one minute? Does she go back to some for repeat visits? Compare notes with a friend and see which bee visits the most flowers!
Observe together
Collect bee-friendly plants for outside your home to observe bees in action. Keep track of when the bees visit your plants, how often, and what they are doing. What do you notice? What do you wonder?
Click here for excellent recommendations on what plants to use.
There are so many interesting roles bees take on in the hive!
By playing the mazes you have already learned that the queen bee lays eggs; the builder bees build the hive; nurse bees feed the baby bees; attendant bees tend to the queen; and drones chase the queen to mate with her. Forager bees collect the nectar and honey from the flowers to bring back to the hive. uard bees and undertaker bees are also interesting beesGuard bees position themselves close to the hive entrance and attack intruders. Undertaker bees clean the hive and remove any dead bees.
Bee role play! Turn your backyard, classroom, or living room into a pretend hive, and make believe you are a bee in the hive. Who gets to play which type of bee? How will you interact in the hive together?
All bees communicate with smell and touch!
Forager bees often return to the hive with information to share. If a forager bee flies in a “figure 8,” she is doing what is known as the “waggle dance.” This special dance gives other forager bees information on the location of a good food source and what direction to fly to find it.
Play-dough fun
Collect some play-dough or clay and create your own honey bee. What are the body parts and what do they help the bee to do?
Could a honey bee live without any of these body parts?
Dance like a Bee
Watch and listen to honey bees busy at work: Click here for a video.
Can you dance and make sounds like a honey bee? How does it make you feel? Set it to music and make it fun for the whole family!
Bees are our friends – never kill them, always protect them!
Are you afraid of bees? Bees can’t sting unless they have a stinger, and only females have stingers. Bees don’t want to sting unless they absolutely have to, They will only do it for self-defense or when something tries to disturb their hive. Always observe bees from a short distance, and never try to catch a bee. Bee stings can hurt, but any discomfort is typically only temporary. However, people who are allergic to bee stings should proceed with extra caution. Note: According to the United States Department of Agriculture, only one or two people in 1,000 are allergic to bee stings” - USDA
Getting to know the bees
Interview a bee by compiling a list of questions.
Example questions might include :
Why don’t you have eyelids?
Where is your hive?
What are your favorite flowers to collect nectar from? What roles have you played in the hive in your lifetime?
After playing BeeAmazed you have learned many important roles that bees can play in the hive. Let the bees carry on their busy work, and do not disturb them.
For more information on bees go to: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/honeybee/
Bee Fruit Cup Recipe!
Cut up
-one apple
-one orange
-half of a cantaloupe
-a handful of blueberries.
Top with honey, lemon juice and serve.
Be sure to tell your taste-tasters that without bees none of these fruits would be available.
Bees pollinate, and we enjoy the fruits of their labor!
Bees are why we have certain foods available to us!
Because bees spread flower pollen as they travel, they help produce fruits and vegetables like apples, oranges, lemons, broccoli, blueberries, cherries, avocado, cantaloupe, carrots, cucumbers, onions, lemons, and limes, just to name a few! Pollinators transfer pollen from one flower to another, fertilizing the plant so that it can grow and produce food. Without bees to spread pollen, these plants would die off.
Bees are our friends – never kill them, always protect them!
Are you afraid of bees? Bees can’t sting unless they have a stinger, and only females have stingers. Bees don’t want to sting unless they absolutely have to, They will only do it for self-defense or when something tries to disturb their hive. Always observe bees from a short distance, and never try to catch a bee. Bee stings can hurt, but any discomfort is typically only temporary. However, people who are allergic to bee stings should proceed with extra caution. Note: According to the United States Department of Agriculture, only one or two people in 1,000 are allergic to bee stings” - USDA
Make a Pollinator-friendly Garden!
Plant flowers that attract bees and other pollinators, and keep the bees and plants healthy by avoiding pesticides and herbicides. Use this site for ideas on what to plant: http://pollinator.org/guides.htm
Honeybees are different from other bees!
Honeybees live together and depend very much on each other. Other bees, such as bumblebees, live alone and are not very social.
All bees visit flowers, but most don’t actually make honey. Bumble bees produce bee bread, which is a combination of which is nectar and pollen. Honey Bees make honey!
Research different type of bees!
Learn how bees differ in how they look and behave. What bees do you have in your backyard? Check out these websites and be on the look-out!