Yesterday I worked with a grade five
class and we surveyed everyone's favourite bee and favourite food.
Here are the results.
Bumblebees: 10
Honeybees: 7
Green sweat bee: 4
Blue mason bee: 1
Mining Bee: 1
Leaf cutter Bee: 1
The winner: Bumblebees come out on top:
10 people chose their beloved furry friends, and one voted
specifically for a male bumblebee because they don't sting! There
were some specific species of bumblebees that folks chose from the
beautiful poster at their table: "The Bumblebees of the Western
United States" (some of which are found in British Columbia).
This educational poster was published by The Pollinator Partnership
and I highly recommend it as a classroom resource illustrating
bumblebee diversity.
There are also cuckoo bumblebees who
look mimic true bumblebees, but they don't sting and they don't carry
pollen. Just like the cuckoo bird, the mother lays her eggs in
another nest and her babies freeload off of the food that was meant
for the true bumblebees. Cuckoo bees are a sign of healthy
biodiversity.
Second Place: Those adorable honeybees
came second with a total of 7 votes, and once again someone voted for
the male bees, the drones who cannot sting.
You don't see male honeybees on flowers
because they hang around in different hives begging for honey. Drones
are the only bees with a passport to visit as many hives as they
like, but when fall comes around, some of them get evicted.
There are also flies which mimic
honeybees and don't sting: They are called hoverflies or syrphid
flies.
There are nine species of honeybees
worldwide. Our European honeybees are called Apis melifera: melifera
is Latin for honey-bearer, which is also the root of names like
Melissa and Melaniea. Apis cerana is the honeybee used for apiculture
in India.
Third Place: The green sweat bee
(Agapostemon spp.): The folks sitting around the "Wild About
Bees" poster published by Canadian Wildlife Federation were
seduced by the beauty of the green sweat bee, in third place with 4
votes. what does the name Agapstemon is Greek: agape (love) and
stemon (stamon) ie lover of stamens. What a great name for a bee! Did
you know that sometimes wasps also come in beautiful metallic
colours? Check out this Jewel Wasp I saw in the herb garden at the
Moberly Community Centre and you'll see what I mean.
In fourth place, we find three bees
with 1 vote each: mason bee, mining bee and leafcutter bee.
These are all solitary bees, meaning
they don't have a queen or castes of worker bees. Some of solitary
will live in groups (like a condo), but each female lays eggs in her
own nest and provides them with nectar and pollen so they can grow
into adult bees before they emerge. The trick is how do bees find
their tunnel is a group of many? Mason beekeepers use colour
patterns, or they toast the front of the mason bee condo to reveal
the pattern in the wood which helps the bees orient themselves to
their particular hole. Sometimes they get in the wrong nest and then
the other female kicks them out.
Okay, now let's talk about the class's
favourite foods:
pizza: 5
blueberries: 4
apple: 3
watermelon: 2
orange: 2 (most oranges are
self-pollinated but bees pollinate mandarin oranges)
strawberry: 1
raspberries: 1
pomegranate: 1
coconut: 1
chocolate: 1
milk: 1 (cows eat alfalfa, pollinated
by leafcutter bees)
subway sandwich: 1
spaghetti and tomato sauce: 1
potato salad: 1
McChicken meal: 1
Various ingredients:
meat: chicken, pork salami, ground beef
or beef meatballs
wheat and other grains such as oats,
quinoa, etc.: (wind pollinated)
potatoes: (self-pollianted, but tomato
breeders need bumblebees to buzz pollinate the blossoms)
tomatoes and peppers: (buzz pollinted
by bumblebees)
onions: (all kinds of bees)
herbs: (all kinds of bees) many herbs
that add flavor to our foods and herbs are also good for the bees
examples:oregano, sage, rosemary
cheese and other dairy: (cows eat
alfalfa which is pollinated by alfalfa leaf cutter bees)
mustard: (seeds are from yellow flowers
are pollinated by bees) vinegar, oil
mayonnaise: (eggs, vinegar and oil)
eggs (chickens sometimes fed on alfalfa
seed)
oils: olive, sunflower, and canola
(sunflower and canola pollinated by teams of different bees)
Summary:
Pizza was a definite winner, but this
class certainly loves its healthy fruits and vegetables. It would be
interesting to figure out how much of your daily diet is actually
pollinated by bees. If one of every three mouthfuls is generally
estimated to be pollinated by bees that's 33 per cent. It's going to
be different for every person. It's almost easier to figure out what
percentage of your diet is not pollinated by bees, i.e. whole grains. (By the way, these
are still part of a healthy diet, even if they aren't pollinated by
bees.) In the next two weeks the class will be researching how their favorite foods are pollinated, blossom morphology and studying bees by drawing and making cartoon bee characters.
Madame Beespeaker's Challenge: Try tracking your food for one day and
estimating what is and isn't pollinated by bees.
Here are some online resources that we explored in the classroom using the Smart Board.
USDA Forest Serve and the Pollinator
Partnership
PublicGardens Associate
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