Bee Dance Treasure Hunt

You've probably heard about the "dances" that bees do to show each other where to find honey? It's really fascinating. We had learned about this before, and I'd forgotten we even did an activity similar to this one—a bee dance treasure hunt! It's funny to look at those pictures and see how little all the children look! This time we did our treasure hunt in two groups, and instead of trying to imitate the actual waggle dance of bees, I just had each group make up any sort of dance move/sign language for communication. For example, one group decided that jumping forward meant "outside," jumping backward meant "inside," waving your arms meant "go left," waving your foot meant "go right," and so forth. Once they had decided what their dance "language" was, they couldn't talk anymore, but only dance to communicate. They took turns hiding the "nectar" treasure (it was actually Lindt truffles this time; yum. You can see the evidence on Goldie's happy face above) and then doing their dances to lead the other "bees" in their group to the treasure.

The older boys did this in a very methodical and workmanlike way, using the minimum fuss possible to find each treasure. And the girls were pretty much the opposite, giggling and wriggling and dancing about as much as they could. :) Little Goldie was SO cute and pleased with herself when she was being the "queen bee." (It's not actually the queen that leads workers to the nectar, of course, but she was SO insistent that she was the queen!) She held her hands up to make a little stinger, and buzzed around the house and yard with great ceremony. I love her.

By the way, if you are worried about the fate of honeybees because of the dreaded Colony Collapse Disorder (and we encountered a TON of hysteria about it a few years ago during our Honeybee Unit), it may reassure you to read this.

Tippy-toes!

Bee photographs

We spent several hours observing bees during this unit (both in the mountains and closer to home), and taking pictures when possible. Some of the pictures were taken by me and some by the children. It is hard to hold the camera still enough! But we were happy to have these pictures because we could then come home and look at the bees more closely, and identify different species and different features on the bees.

We also printed out several of these bee identification cards to take with us on our field trips for reference.

What amazed me most was just how many bees we noticed, once we were looking for them. And how often we could see even very small details, like full pollen baskets or an extended proboscis. I guess you really can see more when you know what to look for (and when you are actually looking)! 

Bees sharing a coneflower

Bulging pollen basket (by the arrow)

I like this bumblebee's orange fur

You can see the dusting of pollen all over this bee's front legs

More very full pollen baskets!

Another strikingly-colored bumblebee

You can see the bee sipping through her proboscis here

Also here

This is an interestingly-colored wasp---the stripes are almost blue or green

And while we were out, we couldn't help but notice some other pollinators. These beautiful butterflies are hard workers too!

This shiny blue one is my favorite!

Bees and Pollination Activity

We have talked about pollination before, during our Flower Unit, but it was good to review it from the bee's point of view. :) I'm sorry to say I have never before noticed the pollen baskets (good picture here) on the legs of bees I've seen flying around, but from now on I will always look for them!

This activity (best for younger kids, really) demonstrates how a bee gathers pollen on her "fur" while sipping nectar from flowers. It's easy to set up: put some small item in the bottom of a plastic cup (we had leftover starbursts) and then fill the cup with Cheetos or some kind of cheesy chip. 

I traced the circle at the mouth of the cup and drew a flower around it, then cut an X in the middle of the flower. Tape the paper flower on to the cup. We made three of these flower cups.

Have your little Bees reach for the nectar at the bottom of the cup. As they do, their fingers become covered with "pollen." Then, show how when they reach into the next cup, they leave orange "pollen" on that flower too.

We also did a simple demonstration of how a bee forms pollen balls. As she gathers the dusty pollen grains on her fur, she scrapes them together and packs them into the "pollen basket" on her back leg. As she packs the individual grains in tighter and tighter, they stick together and form granules, like those in the picture above.

We tried it with brown sugar, picking up the little grains of sugar and then packing them into a teaspoon with our fingers. Then we looked at the little "pollen granules" we had formed.

More pollination: Baked Cotton Balls and Honeybee Race

My friend Beth sent me a link showing how to make these Baked Cotton Balls a long time ago, knowing Seb (our fwuffball fanatic) would love them. So, when I was trying to think of what we would use for pollen in our Bee Race, these came to mind. It was a good excuse to finally make them!

The process is easy (and there are many tutorials online): all you do is mix equal parts of flour and water (I did 1 cup water, 1 cup flour) and add food coloring if you want. Then, dip cotton balls into the mixture until they're all coated. Put them on a foil-covered baking pan and bake at 300 for about 45 minutes.

Honeybee Race Preparation: While the cotton balls were baking, we made flowers. I had the children draw and color flowers on paper and cut them out. Then we mixed sugar and water to make little bowls of "nectar."

To do the honeybee race, each child puts one handle of a cloth shopping bag over his shoulder, and then puts one of his legs through the other handle of the bag. The bag is his "pollen basket." Each child also carries an eye dropper.

We put the flowers out all around the porch. Each flower had a "nectar" bowl and several "pollen grains" (the cotton balls) on top of it. 

When I said "go," all the children ran from flower to flower gathering nectar and pollen. They had to pick up a dropper-ful of nectar and two pollen grains from each flower. Starting with the second flower, they also had to leave one pollen grain (from their "pollen basket" bag) at each flower. Whoever visited all the flowers (collecting nectar and pollen from each) fastest, was the winner. It was a lot of fun!

Junie (with a straw) looks up guiltily from the nectar she was sipping

Honeybees at work

After our Bee Races were over, I let the children bang the baked "pollen" balls with a hammer. They enjoyed that very much! :)