home learning challenge - how to rescue a bumble bee
TRANSCRIPT
And why you should!
By Isla
How to rescue a bumble bee
• Bumble bees are important because they help pollinate flowers.• This means they take pollen from one flower to another
flower.• About one third of the food we eat only grows after being
pollenated by bees.• Without bees, there would be no apples, nuts, avocados,
asparagus, broccoli, celery, zucchini, cucumbers, citrus fruit, peaches, kiwifruit, cherries, blueberries, strawberries, and watermelon!• Honey bee’s are affected by diseases, and there aren’t as
many left.• Bumble bees are helping to do the pollenating.
Why are bumble bees important?
• Bumble bees are quite different to honey bees.– They don’t live in huge hives.
– A bumble bee nest usually has only 50 to 400 bees.– A honey bee hive has 50,000 bees.
– Bumble bees don’t mind bad weather.– Honey bees stay home when its cold or wet.
– Only the queen bumble bee lives through the winter.– Honey bee hives stay alive all year around.
– Bumble bees can sting, but they are much less aggressive than honey bees.– Bumble bees only sting if you try to hurt them.
Bumble Bees
• Sometimes, you might find a bumble bee walking around outside.• This bee has run out of energy, and can’t fly away.• If it can’t get home, it will die.• You can rescue it by giving it a drink of sugar water.
Why do bumble bees need rescuing?
• Boil some water.• Dissolve 3 or 4 heaped teaspoons of sugar in a little hot
water.• Use just enough water to get all the sugar to dissolve.• It takes lots of stirring!• Let the sugar water cool.• Now its ready to go.
Making sugar water
• Put a piece of paper towel on a saucer.• Pour on just enough sugar water to wet the paper towel.• Carefully pick up the bumble bee with a spoon or stick.• Put the bumble bee on the paper towel.• If you watch closely, you will see the bee’s tongue come
out and start sucking up the sugar water.• Add a little more sugar water if needed but not too much.• After 15 or 20 minutes, the bumble bee will fly away home.• You are now an official bumble bee rescuer!
How to rescue a bumble bee
