Bee A Beekeeper Kid Round 2

Tonight was our family's second opportunity to share essays written by the children on why they'd like to be a beekeeper. The videos are unfortunately not uploading. So here's the written form:

Amirrah:

Flowers are really important to bees because then they can get the pollen from the flowers so that they can make honey for us to care for our allergies, our sore throats, and many other reasons. When I studied beekeeping, I figured out about the different flowers that help make edible honey. Some of the flowers in early spring are rosemary, thyme, coconut palm and clovers. Some of the late spring and summer flowers are blueberry, lavender, thistle, and tulip tree. Some of the plants for late flowering are fireweed, sunflowers, and ivy. I will be watching throughout the seasons the bees and which flowers in our yard they go to the most (we have planted many of the flowers mentioned above, as well as a wide variety of wildflowers). I will also watch to see if they go to our peach, cherry, apple, and pecan trees. I will then know which ones the bees most and I can encourage my neighbors to plant more of them so we can help the bees a lot. That is why I would like to be a BAB kid.

Timothy:

If I get a hive this year I will be doing an experiment about which of a variety of scented water works best. I learned from my research that I have to be keeping the water source full, I would have to have a landing pad for the bees, I can use distinctive scents, and if they can’t find it, I can use sugar water to bait them. For landing pads, in the past year of helping with beekeeping, I have found that the wood, even if it gets wet, can still work, even in the shallow feeder we had. With the buckets I use for the experiment, it may be good to use sponges or continue with wood chunks. Another possible way I could possibly bait them, and give the bees scented water was I can trickle the scented water over the hive frames so they look for the source. I will be putting: mint scented, lemon grass scented and various other scented water in buckets. I will be putting them all out at the same time over a period of one week to see which one they will go to most. After recording those results for a week, I will study the data and, for the rest of the year I will use the type of water that worked best. By using the things that help my bees, I think that they will likely survive better. If I see other bees there, I will possibly be helping them, I will leave that scented water out so I can be helping other native bees. Thank you for listening about what I will be doing this year to help honeybees and native bees by providing good water.

Both presented well and got high compliments from other parents. But the competition was stiff with only 7 awards available for the 28 contestants (last year, 60% of contestants were awarded!).

This year, Amirrah was one! We are so excited for her to have her own pet(s!). She is, too!