Bee Feeding

The girls noticed a bee collecting nectar in a clover patch in the backyard. They really enjoyed watching her...and even held out some clover for her to sip.

Girls talked about how cool bees are...how they make honey, how they pollinate flowers and help in growing food, how our bee was a worker bee which meant she was female, and how they can travel a few miles in search of good nectar...and how they are declining in number.

Our bee was a bumblebee, a gentle kind of bee. The girls were very calm and moved slowly around her. We visit the honeybees at the nature center and have practiced walking calmly and slowly by them, so they knew how they should act. We talked about how it would sting if it felt threatened, and unlike a honeybee, the bumblebee's stinger was not barbed so it did not die after stinging.

They were so fascinated...I loved watching their excitement and wonder.