Gorman Heritage Farm – 1 of 7

Bee Life Cycle/Duties Lesson: Preschool – 3rd grade

OVERVIEW/GOALS: (1) Identify the different types of bees (queen, drone, worker) (2) Learn about their duties (3) Sample the products made from bees. (4) Describe simple process of how honey is made.

Gorman Heritage Farm – 1 of 7

MATERIALS:

  • Fairy wings
  • Crown
  • Baby bee
  • Small wooden hammer
  • Goalie masks
  • Fanny pack with yellow puff balls
  • Straws
  • Broom
  • Honey
  • Spoons (for each child)
  • Beeswax lotion
  • Wax candle
  • Clear jar full of water
  • Hive Super with frames that have extruded honey comb (can have a picture if don’t have the actual frame)
  • Bee Job Cards (used as cue cards)

Gorman Heritage Farm – 1 of 7

VOCAB:

  • Nectar - the saccharine secretion (sweet juice) of a plant, which attracts the insects or birds that pollinate the flower.
  • Pollen - the fertilizing element of flowering plants, consisting of fine, powdery, yellowish grains or spores, sometimes in masses.
  • Honey - a sweet, viscid fluid produced by bees from the nectar collected from flowers, and stored in nests or hivesas food.
  • Bee - any hymenopterous insect of the superfamily Apoidea, including social and solitary species of several families, as the bumblebees, honeybees, etc.
  • Super - the portion of a hive in which honey is stored
  • Pollination - the transfer of pollen from the anther to the stigma.
  • Propolis - a reddish glue collected by bees from the buds of trees, used to stop up crevices in the hives, strengthen the cells, etc.
  • Proboscis - Also called beak,the elongate, protruding mouth parts of certain insects, adapted for sucking or piercing.

INTRODUCTION: Have the students look over at the hives, and ask them if they know what those are. Ask them how they feel about bees. Explain that they are very beneficial because they pollinate and make yummy honey. Try to help them with their fear of bees by explaining they are just looking for things to eat, and since you don’t have nectar or honey they will leave you alone if you leave them alone. Don’t swat at bees. Now show them the super with the cells in it.

ACTIVITY (BEE JOB DRESS-UP): Tell the students there are three different kinds of bees, and each of those bees has different duties. As you explain the types of bees and duties give each child a duty with the corresponding accessory. Once all of the jobs and accessories are handed out, perform a bee symphony where each of the students pretend that they are doing their job in the hive as the queen been is the conductor. The farm teacher can flap wings and make bee noises while this is going on.

Picture depicts: Queen Bee, worker, and drone in that order.

Worker (use the accessory that fits the job – shown in the following table):
The vast majority of adult honeybees in any colony are female worker bees. The jobs of the worker honey bee changes throughout their life. The life span of the worker bee is between 30 and 35 days. The job that the worker honeybee performs on any given day depends on its age.The list below is arranged in the order that bees would progress from job to job according to their age. The youngest bees would do the first job in the list, and the oldest bees would do the last.

The jobs of the worker bees are:

Name / Job / Accessory / Question
Cleaners / Repair and clean the comb. Honey bees are neat freaks. They keep their hive clean. Bits of debris such as dead bees and any other items that do not belong in the hive environment are removed from the hive. Any debris that the bees are physically unable to remove is coated in propolis. / Broom and dust pan / What are some of the chores that you do around the house? Or ask them if they aren’t old enough to do chores, How does your family clean the house? Sweeps, dusts, vacuums etc.
Nurse / Tending and feeding young bees and the queen. The nurse bee doesn’t sleep for the 10 days that she is a nurse bee while she is feeding the brood. During the 8 days before the cell containing a larva is capped, it will be fed more than 10,000 times! The queen does not feed herself or groom herself. Nurse bees feed and groom the queen, and even remove her bodily waste from the hive. / Baby bee / Ask them who takes care of them as they grow up and what does she/he need to do to help you grow.
Feed and clothe - same as the nurse bee to the baby larvae.
Builders / Produce wax and build the honey comb and hive. Bees between 12 and 15 days old secrete this from wax glands as a byproduct of honey consumption; the sugars in the honey are processed into wax, which the bees use as the raw material in honeycomb construction. Bees shape the wax with their mandibles and legs. People don’t know exactly why the honeycomb is built in the shape of a hexagon, but maybe because of the shapes optimal use of space. / Small hammer / Have them look and VERY VERY gently touch and smell the comb. Depending on age ask them what shape the honeycomb is.
Honey Maker / Turn the nectar into Honey. The forager beedeposits the nectar into the cells (with an enzyme in their bee stomach) then the honey maker will beat their wings to dry out the nectar, or ripen, the nectar which turns it into honey. (Honey is basically bee spit) / Fan or Hair Dryer / Tell the students to beat their arms and make a buzzing noise. Show them a glass container full of water and explain that is what nectar looks like. Then show them honey in a clear container.
Foraging Bee/Pollen collector / Gathering and storing pollen. When a foraging bee returns to the hive with a load of pollen, she deposits the pollen in a cell. Another bee will later pack the pollen into the cell, using her head to ram the pollen in tightly. When nearly full, the pollen cell will be topped off with a shallow layer of honey, and then capped. Stored in this manner, the pollen will be preserved for many months and can be eaten in the winter months. It is a good source of protein. / Fanny bags with yellow puff balls / Show the poster of the bee and show them where the pollen baskets are.
Foraging Bee /Nectar collector / Gathering and storing water and nectar. When a foraging bee returns to the hive with a load of nectar, another worker takes the nectar from her, and begins the process of transforming the nectar into honey, which they eat when there are no flowers in the winter. / Straws / Show them the bees tongue on the poster and ask them what does this tongue look like or what do we use to suck up liquid from a cup.
Guarders / Protect the hive and the queen. They take posts at each entrance to the hive and challenge anything attempting to enter the hive which is not a member of the hive.
Bees will rob the honey from a weaker hive if they can, and it is the job of the guard bees to prevent this from happening to their hive. They are able to tell if a worker bee attempting to enter is from another hive by scent, and will fight to the death if necessary to prevent that bee from entering the hive. They also emit a pheromone to warn bees inside the hive of impending danger. / Goalie mask / What are the bees’ predators? Several insects (dragonflies, certain wasps and assassin bugs)eat honey bees, particularly foraging bees visiting flowers. Spiders trap honey bees in their webs and eat them. Birds, toads and lizards will eat bees if they have a chance. Bears, badgers, mice and ants are common bee enemies that like to eat honey.

Drones (old video game controller): The queen lays some unfertilized eggs, which produce the drones (males). A drone’s life span is less than 6 months, and they are vulnerable to attacks from other bees, especially if food is scarce. Since they come from unfertilized eggs, the drones carry only the chromosomes of the queen. The drones are somewhat larger and make up only about five percent of the hive population. The drones could be called the couch potatoes of the insect world (like humans who are couch potatoes and just sit on the couch and play video games). While they wait for an opportunity to mate (in kid terms – help the queen make babies), they are fed and cared for by workers and only occasionally fly out of the hive to test their wings. If no opportunity to mate arises by fall, the drones are ejected from the nest by the workers and left to fend for themselves.They do not have a stinger.

Queen (fairy wings and crown)- Suggestion – have the teacher be the queen bee: She is the largest female bee. She does not have pollen baskets on her legs. Eggs destined to become queens are laid in a larger cell, and the larvae are fed only royal jelly. The adult queen's sole duty is to lay eggs, up to 2,000 a day! She is fed by the workers and never leaves the hive except to mate with drones. After mating, the queen begins to lay eggs, about one egg a minute. She does not stop laying eggs. If she stops laying eggs for too long, the worker bees will select another larva to raise as a queen bee to replace her.

Bee Symphony: Make sure to go around and ask each student what their job is and what would be an action they would do if that was their job. For example: nurse bee could pretend like they are feeding the baby bee. Then have the Queen Bee be the conductor and conduct the students in a bee symphony.

Diagram of the Lifecycle of a Worker Bee

ACTIVITY (BEE PRODUCTS – Human’s Job in the hive): Explain that these bees not only make products for themselves, but humans can also use the things that the bees make. Let them take a small bit of the beeswax lotion. Then pass out a spoon per child and have them taste the honey. Also let them look at the beeswax candle.

Interesting Facts:

  • During the busiest time of the year, when plants are freely yielding nectar and pollen and the hive is frantically storing food against the coming winter, the workers live for only about 5 weeks. They quite literally work themselves to death, sacrificing themselves to ensure the survival of the colony. They live about 4 to 9 months in winter, when they aren't working as hard.
  • A hive can contain more than 60,000 bees in summer, but that number will decrease to around 20,000 in winter.
  • The last thing an old worker bee will do for the colony is to remove herself from the hive before she dies. Flying away or even crawling if she’s no longer able to fly, she will die alone.She does this so her colony won’t have to expend energy to remove her body from the hive.
  • A honey bee’s wings flap over 183 times per second!
  • Bees visit 50-100 flowers to collect nectar and pollen on each foraging trip.
  • Bees can’t fly when they are born and may not see light until they are 2/3 finished with their life.

Info from:

Lesson Plan provided by:

Gorman Heritage Farm

10052 Reading Road

Cincinnati, OH 45241