Bees In Schools

Cost $400 per session (up to 30 students, +$5 per additional student) - Multiple sessions on the same day will receive a discount

Overview:

Students explore the basic needs of bees, including food and water and how they relate to honey production, pollination, and bee life cycles. They will explore where different bees like to live, how they pollenate plants to create our food and why we should create habitat for them in our gardens.

Students learn about how bees in a hive are related to each other, their family dynamics, how baby bees are cared for and by whom with contrast to a typical human family structure.

Students learn how the seasons can affect bees. (Condensed down) students explore that during summer and into autumn bees make honey, as it cools down they move honey into the brood box to keep their babies warm, Bees slow down over winter to conserve their energy and resources. In spring, as the weather warms and flowers spring to life, bees become more active, they move honey out of their brood box to make room for more brood to be laid. During this time, a hive may swarm, which is the natural process of a hive dividing.

Students learn about the different hive designs humans have created in order to support or farm bees as well as how native bee boxes mimic a bees natural environment.

We emphasis the importance to care for all insects in our environment and the vital role they play in our ecosystem.

Learning Intentions

· Experience a live Australian Native Bee Hive

· Discover the importance of bees in our environment

· Create an understanding of how and why bees pollinate plants

· Discover how to create a bee friendly garden

· Learn about the biology of a bee

· Learn how honey bees are farmed in Australia

· Learn how to cold press a frame of honey

· Understand why bees are so important to our survival

Hands on activities

· Students will learn how and why we cold press our honey. Some students will be invited up to press their own honey using our mini presses (or this can be done in groups so all students get a turn)

· Students can taste honeycomb cut straight from the hive (if the school wishes to)

· Students will be able to look inside a real native beehive

· In groups students can build native bee hotels to be placed around the school

Values Based Education integration:

Love lived as Kindness, Students will explore the notion that to be a good human being one must practise kindness to all living beings.

Cost $400 per session (up to 30 students, +$5 per additional student) - Multiple sessions on the same day will receive a discount

Overview:

Students will explore the life cycle of bees and how they interact with each other and the environment for survival. During the life cycle of a bee, they grow from egg, to larve to pupa, then a metamorphosis happens and the pupa changes into a nurse bee. Students then learn how a bee perform different roles throughout their life. Here students will learn about hive dynamics, how the groups within the hive depend on each other for survival. Students will discuss the roles of different bee types within the hive and their dependence on flowering plants.

Students learn about how and where bees obtain their food. Pollen for protein and nectar (then honey) for their carbohydrates. How honey is made, how modern day humans harvest that honey and why it is important to leave the bee with enough resources when harvesting.

Students learn how and why honey crystallizes, and by using science, manufacturers have discovered how heating honey stops crystallization, they then also discover that heating honey has a negative impact on the health benefits of eating that honey.

Student then explore how pests and diseases that can affect the European bees such as AFB, hive beetle and Varroa Mite (which has now been discovered in Australia), how they spread, the impact on a single hive how they issues spread from hive to hive. And if humans can help to intervene

Students will learn about the characteristics and features of a honey bee and examine how bees fit into classification systems.

Students will examine how environmental conditions, including climate change, pesticides, and habitat loss, impact bee growth and survival. Students will learn how their efforts for conservation and habitat restoration can be applied at home (native bee hotels, bee friendly water dishes), Students will discuss how they can action a plan to positively make change to the issues identified in the session.

Learning Intentions

· Experience a live Australian Native Bee Hive

· Discover the importance of bees in our environment

· Understand how bees are used for agricultural crop production

· Create an understanding of how and why bees pollinate plants

· Discover how to create a bee friendly garden

· Learn about the biology of a bee

· Learn how honey bees are farmed in Australia

· Learn how to cold press a frame of honey

· Understand why bees are so important to our survival

· Evaluate ways to support pollinating insects

Hands on activities

· Students will learn how and why we cold press our honey. Some students will be invited up to press their own honey using our mini presses (or this can be done in groups so all students get a turn)

· Students can taste honeycomb cut straight from the hive (if the school wishes to)

· Students will be able to look inside a real native beehive

· In groups students can build native bee hotels to be placed around the school

Values Based Education integration:

Love lived as Kindness, Students will explore the notion that to be a good human being one must practice kindness to all living beings

Truth lived as Consideration: Students explore the idea that actions have consequences, and by considering a bee, its needs and how humans have affected them, students are encouraged to consider how their actions can have positive or negative impacts on living things.

Cost $400 per session (up to 30 students, +$5 per additional student) - Multiple sessions on the same day will receive a discount