Category: Biology (Page 32 of 40)

Honey Bees: Science Activities for Kids

Once again, our activities this week are inspired by a book, this time it is The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe (Scientists in the Field Series) by Loree Griffin Burns and photographs by Ellen Harasimowicz. (We also used Loree Burn’s Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion for activities in a previous post). Check Wrapped in Foil for a review of the book.hive-detectives

You may have heard on the news that honey bees are disappearing. The Hive Detectives follows the research of four scientists trying to figure out what is going on, as well as discussing a lot of general information about honey bees.

In the 1990’s I co-authored a set of lesson plans about honey bees, called “Africanized Honey Bees on the Move” for the University of Arizona. At the time the Africanized honey bees had just moved into Arizona, and many people were concerned about them. The lesson plans have a number of hands-on activities to do with many aspects of honey bee biology. If you go to a grade level, it will list appropriate lessons. Each lesson has links to activity and information sheets. Many of the lessons can be adapted to mixed-age groups.

Here are some honey bee-related activities and links:

1. Gardening for bees

Honey bees require pollen and nectar from flowers in order to survive. One simple activity is to investigate what kinds of bee-friendly plants grow in your area and have your children design and plant a bee garden.

You may wonder if encouraging honey bees to visit flowers in an area with children might be dangerous. It turns out that bees collecting food, called foraging bees, are not likely to sting unless they are stepped on, caught or otherwise threatened. This might not be an appropriate activity, however, for children who are allergic to bees.

(The first two websites were recommended in the book).

Pollinator.org has free planting guides to help you find appropriate plants.

And don’t forget the Great Sunflower Project mentioned in a previous post.

These flowering plants help all kinds of pollinators, not just honey bees.

2. Honey bees and water

honey-bees-drinking

Any idea what these bees are doing?

Honey bees need a lot of water, especially in the summer. They use the water to cool inside the hive, to prevent the wax honeycomb from melting. You can see the tongue, called a proboscis, sucking up the water at the edge of this lily pad.

Getting water can be dangerous business for a honey bee. Honey bees often end up falling in, like the ones you see in swimming pools. Can you design a safe place for honey bees to gather water to add to your garden?

3. Honey bee communication and dances.

One of my favorite lessons was always doing the honey bee waggle dances as a way of learning how honey bees communicate.

Dancing under a polarized sky also has a lot of information about honey bee dances.

4. Honey bee senses

Honey bees perceive the world in a way that is very different from humans.

Honey bee senses lesson

What a bee sees

5. Honey bee and other bee nests

Investigate where honey bees live, where beekeepers keep bees and what it is like inside a hive.

The Insect Architects post has a some information about honey bee homes.

You can supply nest sites for other kinds of bees.

bee-nest-site

I don’t know whether you can read it, but the sign says “Digger Bee Nest Site.” We have left a patch of soil for the tiny digger bees to nest in.

The solitary and social bees lesson has a explanation of the different kinds of bees and how to construct an orchard mason bee nest.

bee-nest-site-2

There are a lot of ways to use honey bees as examples for science and nature lessons. Please let me know if you would like more information about any of these activities or if you have found a great website that helps children learn about honey bees.

Books to help you find out more (linked images and titles go to Amazon):

In addition to The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe (Scientists in the Field Series),

you might be interested in these other books about bees from a precious post:
For young children you might want to try The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive

Are You a Bee? (Backyard Books) is an intriguing book that compares humans and honey bees in an informative and gently humorous way.

The Bumblebee Queen by April Pulley Sayre (Author), Patricia J. Wynne (Illustrator) is a positively gorgeous book, chock full of good information. Any child who is interested in bees will love this book.

A Country Year: Living the Questions by Sue Hubbell has some interesting tidbits on keeping honey bees, although it is about many other aspects of the natural world as well. A few of the chapters can some information that could be considered adult, such as she briefly discusses her divorce. You might want to read it first to determine if it is suitable for your older children. I have to say my son and I love it and I read it to him almost every summer (a summer tradition).

A Book of Bees: And How to Keep Them by Sue Hubbell contains a lot more technical information about beekeeping. There are many other books about beekeeping available, but this one warms my heart because it also shows more of the human side of the experience.

Plus visit our growing list of children’s books about honey bees at Science Books for Kids.

Note: the book that inspired this post was found at our local library.

Insect Common Names

A few posts back I talked about Latin and Greek and scientific names for organisms. Today let’s look at some conventions used with insect common names.

A. Is it honey bees or honeybees?

When in graduate school, I learned a convention from Dr. Roger Morse for insect names (I have since learned the idea originated with Robert E. Snodgrass). The insect names that are taxonomically correct, such as honey bees are actually bees, should be written as two words. Insect names that are not accurate in identification are given as one word. For example, whiteflies are not really flies, but are relatives of aphids, and thus should be one word.

Quiz (answers at the bottom of this post):

Pick the correct common name according to this convention:

butterfly

1. Butter fly or butterfly?

crane-fly

2. Crane fly or cranefly?

dragonfly

3. Dragon fly or dragonfly?

lady-beetle

4. Lady bug or ladybug?

leaffooted-bug

5. Leaf-footed bug or leaf-footedbug?

Bumblebee

Photo from Wikimedia

6. Bumble bee or bumblebee?

The convention is only a rule of thumb, however, because there are definitely exceptions:

Velvet_Ant

Photograph by Craig Pemberton. Wikimedia

Although this creature is really a wasp, it’s common name is velvet ant (2 words).

B. Mantis or mantid?

This distinction is more difficult. I had learned that either is correct, that is the two terms are interchangeable. There is, however, a growing convention that mantis only be used for the insects of the genus Mantis, and that all others be called mantids. (Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University).

I personally like to use mantids for the plural, it is just easier.

For a searchable list of common names for insects of North America, see the Entomological Society of America

Let me know if you have any questions about insect names or would like to learn more.

Answers:

1. butterfly

2. crane fly (two words)

3. dragonfly

4. ladybug (Note: if you use beetle, then it is two words,  lady beetle or ladybird beetle)

5. leaf-footed bug (2 words)

6. Bumble bee (2 words)

Where do insects go in the winter?

aphidsNow that spring is here, we are beginning to see all sorts of insects. Some, like these aphids, don’t have wings and are pretty tiny. Their appearance year after year, seemingly out of nowhere, makes you wonder:  “where do bugs go in the winter?”

A new book, Bugs and Bugsicles: Insects in the Winter by Amy S. Hansen and Robert C. Kray (illustrator) gives us the answers for a number of common species of insects and a few uncommon ones, too (see review at Wrapped in Foil).

What happens when we get cold? We put on more clothes, and our bodies work extra hard to produce more heat. We may even shiver. Insects can’t do those things as easily, and are thus susceptible to cold and freezing. They do have some “cool” strategies to get through the winter, though.

Activities:
bugs-and-bugsicles

1. Pick an insect and investigate its life cycle.

Each kind of insect has a unique life cycle. By investigating the stages an insect passes through, you can figure out which stage or stages the insect is in during the winter.

Insects may overwinter as eggs, which are small and resistant to drying out. Other insects overwinter as immatures, called “nymphs.” As you will see below, there are insects that go through the winter as larvae. Others, such as moths, may stay cozy in protective cocoons and overwinter as pupae. The remaining insects spend the winter as adults, often hidden in cracks and crevices, such as in the bark of trees.

A few insects and insect relatives seem to defy their cold-blooded roots and can be found active in the winter. One example are the snow fleas, a type of springtail or collembola. We once spotted the tiny black creatures hopping across the snow while we were cross-country skiing. Wow!

If you are interested in ants, check out Where do ants go in the winter? at Wild About Ants. One species is called the “winter ant.”

Monarch butterflies are interesting insects because they fly long distances, or migrate, to avoid the winter cold.

This is a video about overwintering monarch butterflies. It is a trailer for the Discovery Channel show Life. Note for parents of sensitive children: the video does show birds eating butterflies and a butterfly covered with frost (presumably dead).

Have monarch butterflies appeared where you live yet this year?

2. Activities with acorns

We recently went to a talk by entomologist Mark Moffett and he told us about insects that spend their lives in acorns. He said that if you put acorns in a container of water, the ones that float are likely to have critters inside. The most common insect found inside an acorn is the acorn weevil. Ants, moths, and flies sometimes use acorns for homes too.

Video from National Geographic showing the life cycle of the acorn weevil.

Note to parents of sensitive children: This video shows a predator eating an acorn weevil larva. The larvae spend their first winter in the acorn and theier second winter underground as pupae.

See more acorn activities at  Acorns for Rent

3. Examine the properties of water when it freezes.

Living cells are full of water. What happens to water when it freezes, such as during the winter?

Bugs and Bugsicles has two hands-on experiments in the back to help children explore the freezing process.

The author also discusses how one insect uses a special strategy to get through the super cold winters of the far north. Without giving away all the details, let’s just say it involves antifreeze. And bugsicles!

This book was provided by the author.

For more information:

Bug Info “Where do insects go in winter?” – Smithsonian Institution Encyclopedia

Winter Hideaways at the University of Kentucky

Where do bugs go in winter? at About.com

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