Activity 1: Bee Communities

1. Provide each student with the KWL Chart handout. As a class or independently, have the students create a KWL chart to record what they Know (K) about honey bees, what they Want (W) to know about them, and what they have Learned (L) by the end of the lesson.
2. Read The Life and Times of the Honeybee by Charles Micucci.
3. Hand out a copy of the Honeybee Worksheet to each student. Discuss the roles of the three types of honeybees and have the students complete the worksheet. Integrate the following facts into the discussion:
   • Bees live in groups called colonies.
   • Each colony has one queen. The queen has a longer body than all of the other bees in the colony.
   • Drone bees are smaller than the queen. They are male bees and their only job is to mate with the queen so she can lay more eggs. One colony will have about 100 drone bees.
   • Worker bees are the smallest bees in the colony. They are all female and have lots of different jobs including feeding the larvae; cleaning the hive; creating wax and using it to make new cells; grooming and feeding the queen; guarding and protecting the hive; and leaving the hive to collect pollen, nectar, and water. There are thousands of worker bees in the colony.
4. Use the information on the Amazing Bees Online Poster to help students discover the ways in which bee colonies work together as a community.
5. Use a Venn Diagram or Top Hat Graphic Organizer to compare and contrast how bees in a hive and students in a classroom work together as a community. Examples include:
   • The bees in a hive live in large groups called colonies. In our school, our class is a large group of students.
   • In the hive, there is one bee who is the leader—the queen. In our classroom, the teacher is the leader.
   • In the hive, the worker bees have special jobs—take care of the young bees, guard the hive, create wax to build the honeycomb where eggs are laid, forage or find pollen and nectar to feed the bees in the hive, and make honey. In our classroom, we all have jobs. (Students can list jobs specific to their classroom.)
   • If a bee doesn't do his/her job, the whole hive is affected. For example, if the bees that are supposed to look for pollen and nectar decide not to, some or all of the bees will not have the proper nutrients. In our classroom, if someone doesn't do their job, it affects the entire class. For example, if one person does not put away their books in our library, other students won't be able to read those books.

Activity 2: Making Honey

1. Read The Beeman by Laurie Krebs. Discuss the roles of the bees, as well as the terms explained in the book—nectar, pollen, hive, colony, cells, eggs, larva, and pollination.
2. Have the students act out the steps of the honey-making process:
   • Forager bees collect nectar from flowers using their straw-like mouth part called a proboscis. As they suck up the nectar, pollen sticks to their legs and body. Forager bees visit up to 100 flowers to fill their stomachs with nectar. Place small cartons or containers of milk, which represents flowers with nectar, randomly throughout the classroom with a parent volunteer/assistant. Assign half of the students to stand in one corner of the classroom to represent worker bees that stay in the hive. Assign the other half of the students to be foragers. Provide each forager with a 3-ounce cup. Instruct them to visit the flowers where the parent volunteer/assistant will pour a small amount of milk into their cup. When their cup is half-full, they will fly back to the hive.
   • When the forager bees are full with nectar, they fly back to the hive and regurgitate the nectar into the mouths of other worker bees. Special enzymes in the stomachs of the bees change the nectar into runny, watery honey. The worker bees spit the honey into the waxy honeycomb. Have the foragers travel to the "hive" and give their cup of "nectar" (milk) to one of the worker bees. Have parent volunteers/assistants add 1 teaspoon of instant pudding mix to each milk cup. The pudding mix represents the enzymes that turn the nectar into honey.
   • The worker bees use their wings as fans to evaporate the water from the honey. This makes the honey thicker. Provide the worker bees with a spoon or stir-stick to mix the milk and pudding mix for 1 minute. Allow the mixture to sit and thicken for 5 minutes.
   • The worker bees close up the honeycomb with wax to protect the honey. They use the honey as food for the winter. Lucky for us, they make about 2-3 times more honey than they need so we get to eat it too! Have the parent volunteers/assistants use a can of whipped cream to cover the pudding, representing the wax cover. Provide each student with a spoonful of the pudding to show that the bees all share the honey and some is left over. Beekeepers can take some of the honey, but cannot not take all of the honey or the bees will not have enough to eat throughout the winter. The bees all have an important piece in the job of creating honey and all share the product.

Activity 3: A Day in the Life of a Honey Bee

1. Lead a discussion about the importance of honey bees and how they affect the environment. Integrate the following points into the discussion:
   • As bees travel to find nectar, they brush up on the flower's pollen.
   • Pollen is powder-like and sticks to the bees' hairy bodies.
   • When the bees fly to the next flower, some of the pollen is brushed off onto the flower.
   • The flower uses the pollen to make seeds which can grow new plants that give us fruits, nuts, and vegetables. We depend on pollination for the fruits and vegetables we eat.
2. Ask the students to think about what they have learned about honey bees and what a honey bee's day might be like.
3. Have the students write and/or draw about where they would fly and what they would do if they were honey bees. Allow time for the students to share their work.
4. Complete the KWL chart from Activity 1 by listing what the class learned about bees.