Top 5 coolest facts about… Honey Bees… Buuuzzzzzz!

What’s your favourite spread to have on toast? Mine would have to be marmalade, but my hubby is a huge honey fan……. and after reading some of these incredible facts, I could be tempted to convert!

You can down load your free copy of this poster

(in colour and black and white) here.

I recently embarked on some fun honey bee art lessons that the kids loved… below you can see a collage that includes (top left) some 3D hanging bees that the children assembled using a selection coloured paper, sellotape, strong and pipe cleaners! After discussing the basic external anatomy of the bee (head, thorax, abdomen, antennae, 6 legs and 2 pairs of wings), they crumpled up paper balls and then covered them in colored paper to show their understanding….a very quick way to assess whether the children had understood the concept and a lot of fun!
The other pictures above and below show some easy honey comb printing we did using bubble wrap! I simply measured out a rectangle of bubble wrap that was a similar size to the black paper we were using and sellotaped it onto a table bubble side up. (Don’t forget to cover the table with plastic sheeting first!) We then roughly painted the bubble wrap with a selection of white, yellows and brown acrylic paints using a large brush. After the bubble wrap was covered in paint, the children carefully pressed a sheet of black paper down on top of it, and rubbed the whole surface of the paper (paying careful attention to the corners and edges). They then peeled off the paper and voila! A honey comb print! When their print was dried, we cut out and attached their pastel drawings of their bees, and they added some gold glitter to show where the bees carry their pollen.

Top left: Pastel honey bees. Top and bottom right: Bubble wrap that’s been lightly coated in a selection of acrylic paint using a wide brush. Bottom left: the completed honey comb print on black paper.

The humble, hard working honey bee deserves so much more respect than they’re currently getting – if you’re not convinced, take a moment to consider the picture below!

This image was found here – pop over and read their full blog post
“This is what your grocery store look like without bees”

If you look closely at the photo above, you should be able to see the full pollen baskets on the back legs of this very busy honey bee. Did you know that the fancy name for the pollen-holding structure is a CORBICULA? (A corbicula is a polished cavity on the bee’s back legs that’s surrounded by a fringe of hairs. It’s where the bee stores the pollen it collects)