Heritage Day 3 on BEES
Caitríona McCabe returned to our school on Thursday 14th March to share her knowledge on BEES. The Senior Classes assembled in Mr McMacklin’s
room at 12 noon for a Powerpoint Presentation. We learned a lot of interesting facts about the bee.
· Ireland has 3 different types of bees:
The Honey Bee, The Bumble Bee, The Solitary Bee
·Ireland has 101 species of these bees:
Honey Bee ( 1) Bumble Bee (20) Solitary Bees (80)
The Honey Bee.
The honey bee has a black under-section.
The Bumble Bee.
The bumble bee is hairy with different coloured
stripes.The bumble bee makes honey but only enough to feed themselves. Manuka bees are called after the manuka plant. The bumble bee collects nectar and pollen but only one at the time. The pollen (yellow powder) is used for feeding the young and is collected in pollen baskets located on the sides of their feet.
Their long, hollow tongue (like a straw) is used to collect the nectar which is a liquid sugar. This is
made into honey back in the hive.
The Queen Bee.
The queen bee is massive and hibernates underground all Winter. Her antennae help her to see and smell mouse pee, indicating a suitable underground
The Solitary Bee.
The solitary of which there are 80 species in Ireland doesn’t look like a bee, it looks like a fly! Some are big and others are as small as an ant.They usually live in sandy banks along by the coast.
They lay one egg in a hollow log or wall which is safely concealed with bee bread before laying another and concealing it safely again.
The Wasp.
The wasp is completely different to the bee.
It isn’t hairy but longer and brighter to warn creatures of its sting.
Conservation of Bees.
Caitríona finished the powerpoint by telling us the bees need our help to provide them with food and shelter. Some farming practices and gardening methods can destroy our bee populations. The need hedgerows and flowers.
Six of the bumble bees in Ireland are endangered and we have already lost one of our solitary bees. It was
the Tawny Miney Bee.
Caitríona showed us an area in China where they have no bees. Now the people there have to do the work of the bees themselves. They have to individually pollinate each flower!
Third and Fourth Workshop on BEES
In the afternoon workshop, Caitríona showed us a beehive and some honeycombs.
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It was very interesting to learn that the worker bees are all female. They are very busy:
· Collecting food and bringing it back to the hive
. Making honey
· Feeding the babies
· Feeding the queen
· Making the hive
· Cleaning the hive
· Guarding the front door
The drones are all male. They do nothing but fly about all day and return to eat. They have no long tongues for sucking up the nectar from plants.
Neither do they have stingers. The drone’s only function is to mate with the
queen.
The worker bees kick out the drones out of the hive at the end of the
summer, leaving them to die. In winter, it’s just the queen and the workers that remain in the hive.
The queen lays 2,000 eggs a day. She lives for up to 6 years.
She eats royal jelly from the tops of the heads of the worker bees.
Stingers:
When a bee stings, it dies. Its stinger is like a screw and therefore it can’t get away without ripping its body in half .In contrast a wasp’s stinger is like a
nail. It can sting and fly away taking its stinger with it.
· Collecting food and bringing it back to the hive
. Making honey
· Feeding the babies
· Feeding the queen
· Making the hive
· Cleaning the hive
· Guarding the front door
The drones are all male. They do nothing but fly about all day and return to eat. They have no long tongues for sucking up the nectar from plants.
Neither do they have stingers. The drone’s only function is to mate with the
queen.
The worker bees kick out the drones out of the hive at the end of the
summer, leaving them to die. In winter, it’s just the queen and the workers that remain in the hive.
The queen lays 2,000 eggs a day. She lives for up to 6 years.
She eats royal jelly from the tops of the heads of the worker bees.
Stingers:
When a bee stings, it dies. Its stinger is like a screw and therefore it can’t get away without ripping its body in half .In contrast a wasp’s stinger is like a
nail. It can sting and fly away taking its stinger with it.
Planting Sunflower Seeds
We finished off our biodiversity day by planting
sunflower seeds. This would be our contribution to
attracting bees to our school garden and thanking them for the valuable work they do in providing food for us.
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Firstly, Caitríona showed us how to make a bio degradable plant pot by folding and shaping recycled newspaper. Next we filled the pot with compost. We didn’t have enough in our own compost bin so we had to buy a bag at the local garden centre. Then we each put a sunflower seed in along with a lollipop stick bearing our
name.
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