Bees Bees Bees with the Bee Lady

Our first trip was to Tangaroa College where we got to meet the students and teachers working with us from other schools. We also got to meet Julian, who is helping us with the sensors, and Sara the Bee Lady, who would be teaching us some facts about bees. We also got to see inside a real hive and touch honey comb!

The Bee Lady's presentation at Tangaroa

Inside the hive we could see the Queen Bee moving around, along with plenty of worker bees which were smaller than the Queen. There was also one or two male bees, who were larger than the workers. We could see her move around the different parts of the hive to lay eggs in the holes. We learned that the female bees do all of the work, and if there are too many males then the workers will nibble off their wings and kick them out of the hive!

Ebony, Sara, Portia and me!

We learned the following information from Sara:

• Bees have three parts: a head, a thorax and an abdomen and four wings
• They have very good vision and five eyes
• Their antenna have very good smell ability and help detect how close the flower is
• Bees dance to communicate to each other - called the waggle dance
• Bees have two stomachs, one for water and one for nectar
• Bees are only able to sting you once because it will pull out its guts when it flies away
• 80% of all of our food is pollinated by bees
• When a hive gets hot the bees flap their wings to make a breeze to cool it down
• A bee only usually lives for 6 weeks - 3 in the hive and 3 out of the hive
• Pollution affects how the bees are able to smell their way home
• The varroa mite is affecting the hives in NZ by killing the bees

Honeycomb!

We also learned the Bee Song:

Do you like to buzz?
Are you covered all in fuzz
Do you call a hive your home
In the garden where you roam
Do you like your honey
Are your stripes a little funny
Do you like to buzz?

Overall it was a very fun evening and I'm looking forward to the project!

~ Kororia