Honey Bee Lapbook

Honeybee Lapbook Research

Three Types of Bees 1. Queen The queen is the largest of the three different types of bees. She has a very long abdomen. She uses her stinger to fight off other queen bees, and she can use it multiple times without dying. The queen's main purpose in life is to make more bees, and she can lay up to 2,000 eggs each day!

2. Drone Drones are the male members of the hive. They have a rounded abdomen, huge eyes, and powerful wings. They do not have a stinger, wax secreting glands, or even a proboscis, so they must be fed by the workers. They only purpose of a drone is to mate with a queen bee. After mating, the drones die.

3. Worker Worker bees are females who keep the hive afloat. They are the smallest of the three kinds of bee in the colony. Workers have a long proboscis (tongue) in order to suck up nectar from flowers. Their hind legs have stiff hairs that form pollen baskets. They have a stinger but can only sting once. When they sting, the barbs are like hooks, and the stinger gets stuck in the victim. As this happens, the stinger is pulled out of the bee's body which kills the bee.

Has your student ever heard the expression "as busy as a bee?" Well, that's because worker bees are busy! Here are some of their responsibilities: 1. Guard the entrance to the hive 2. Clean the hive 3. Build the comb 4. Make honey 5. Keep the hive cool (by fanning their wings) 6. Tend to her majesty, the queen 7. Feed the baby bees 8. Collect pollen and nectar

After a worker bee has made about 400 flights to retrieve nectar and pollen, the muscles in her wings and legs are worn out. She will fall to the ground and die.

Complete these mini-books: Types of Bees Layer Worker Bee’s To-Do List

Bee Communication Does your student know that some animals "talk" to each other with different kinds of smells? Pheromones are chemicals that allow animals to do this. Here are some of the messages that bees send each other with pheromones: ~I live in the same hive as you ~I don't know you ~I'm a worker ~I'm the queen ~Danger! ~Protect the hive!

Complete this mini-book: Pheromones Circle Book

Finding Good Nectar Bees communicate by dancing, too. One kind of dance they do is the round dance. This dance tells bees that a food source is near the hive. The bee walks in a circle, then she turns around and goes the other way.

Another dance bees do is the waggle dance. This dance tells bees that a food source is far from the hive. The waggle dance is done in different ways to show the other bees which direction they need to go to find the nectar. The bee who found the source starts out by making a figure eight. She waggles her body on the middle line. If she waggles straight up, the other workers know they need to fly toward the sun. If she waggles to the left, the other bees fly to the left of the sun. If she waggles to the right, they head to the right of the sun.

Complete this mini-book: May I Have This Dance? Flap Book

From Nectar to Honey Honeybees use the nectar they get from flowers to make honey.

1. They use their proboscises like straws to suck the nectar out of the flowers and they store it in their honey stomachs. Bees have two stomachs-- one used as a regular stomach and one used as the honey stomach which is a holding tank for the nectar. Your student may like to think of it as a nectar backpack. Honeybees must visit between 100 and 1500 flowers in order to fill the honey stomach which can hold 70 mg of nectar. 2. The honeybees return to the hive and pass the nectar to other worker bees. These bees suck the nectar from the honeybee's stomach through their mouths. 3. These house bees chew the nectar for about half an hour. During this time, the complex sugars in the nectar are broken into simple sugars. 4. The worker bees continue by spreading the nectar throughout the honeycombs where water evaporates from it. 5. The bees make the nectar dry even faster by fanning it with their wings. 6. Once the honey is gooey enough, the bees seal off the honeycomb with a plug of wax. The honey is stored until it is eaten.

Pollination A bee's furry body carries pollen from flower to flower while she searches for nectar. While she stops at a flower for nectar, some pollen from other flowers she's already visited will rub off. This process, called pollination, helps the flowers make seeds which will grow into new plants.

Complete this mini-book:| Pollination File Folder

Nature Journal- Bee Observation If the weather is right, take your student outside. Find some flowers and observe them for at least 30 minutes. Where are the honey bees? Which flowers are the busiest? You may want to repeat this exercise on another day at a different type. Compare the results.

Complete this mini-book: Observation cards & pocket

Bee's Wax & Hive Construction The wax for the hive is made inside the a bee's body. It comes out through openings in the bee's abdomen; these are called wax glands.

After the bee produces small flakes of wax, she uses her back and middle legs to pass the wax to her front legs. She puts the wax in her mouth, chews on it, and shapes it into cells. A cell is a chamber shaped like a hexagon. The cells are used for three things: bee eggs & larvae, honey storage, and pollen storage. The bees have to make thousands of cells in order to create a comb.

Complete these mini-books: Hive Sweet Hive Cell Tri-fold

Hive Robbers Humans love honey and different animals do, too! Some of the most common hive robbers are bears (who also want to eat the larvae), skunks, wasps, and bees from other hives.

Complete this mini-book: Hive Robbers Petal Book

Lifecycle of a Honeybee 1. A queen bee lays an egg in an empty cell in the comb. It is a soft, white oval and is about the size of the dot over the letter i. (That's little!) 2. In just three days, a larva (like a worm) hatches from the egg. It is fed by the worker bees and grows and grows. 3. Seven days later, the larva stops eating. It spins a silk cocoon covering. Inside the cocoon, the pupa begins to develop. It will grow legs, wings, and eyes. 4. An adult bee chews its way out of the cell.

Bee Senses How do honeybees see? With a compound eye which is an eye made up of thousands of tiny lenses that allow a honey bee to see ultraviolet light (humans can't see ultraviolet-- refer to Honey in a Hive for some pictures that will help explain this concept).

How do they smell? Bees smell flowers with their antennae and with the pads on their feet. The smell tells the bee if the nectar will make good honey.

Un-bee-lievable Facts ~In one year, a colony of bees eats between 120 and 200 pounds of honey. ~A honeybee would have to fly about 55,000 miles to find enough nectar to make one pound of honey. ~It would take a honeybee approximately 1,600 trips from the flower to the hive (and back) to produce one ounce of honey. ~Honeybees will fly up to 8 miles from their nest to find food. ~The brain of a worker bee is about the size of the head of a pin. ~A honeybee would have to visit 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey. ~A honeybee visits more than 2,000 flowers on a busy day. ~Honeybees are the only insect in the world that produces food for humans. ~Queen bees can lay up to 2,000 eggs in a day. That averages out to one egg every 45 seconds!

Complete these mini-books: Un-bee-lievable Facts

Bee Vocabulary Beebread- a bitter yellowish brown pollen and nectar mixture stored in honeycomb cells; it is used by the honeybees as food Brood- the eggs and larvae in the colony Cell- a chamber shaped like a hexagon, built out of beeswax; cells are used for rearing the brood, storing pollen, and storing honey Colony- a group of animals living together Hive- home to a colony of bees Nectar- a sweet liquid found in flowers and plants Pollen- a fine powdery substance produced by the anthers of a flower Royal jelly- a milky, yellow syrup that worker bees produce and feed to potential queen bees when they are larvae Social insect- insects that work and live together in a community Swarm- a great number of honeybees leaving together from a hive with a queen to start a new colony elsewhere Pheromone- chemical substance (as a scent) that is produced by an animal and serves as a signal to other individuals of the same species Propolis- a sticky substance that bees collect from trees; they use it as glue to seal parts of the beehive which protects it from the weather Proboscis -long, tube like tongue

What is royal jelly?

Who gets to eat it?

Cut on solid. Fold on doed.

’

Cut out book as one piece. Fold in half. Write in the w

orker bee’s jobs. Review throughout the w

eek. Have your student list the jobs w

ithout looking. Make a check m

ark next to the ones he can list. Paste the list to the inside of the book.

A younger student can use the book on the next page.

’

Guard the entrance to the hive

Clean the hive

Build the comb

Make honey

Keep the hive cool

Tend to the queen

Feed the brood

Collect nectar and pollen

Cut out book as one piece. Fold in half. Write in the w

orker bee’s jobs. Review throughout the w

eek. Have your student list the jobs w

ithout looking. Make a check m

ark next to the ones he can list. Paste the list to the inside of the book.

Follow these instrucons. Glue cover

piece to the front of the book. Use

the six spaces in the book to write

the six dierent messages that bees

comm

unicate using pheromones.

Round Dance

Waggle D

ance

Waggle D

ance Straight U

p

Waggle D

ance Left

Waggle D

ance Right

Cut out book as one piece. Fold left side in. Fold right side in. Open book.

Cut on dotted lines to form five flaps. Refold book.

You are looking at the inside of the book. Cut shape out as one piece. Write one common hive robber on each ap. Fold aps in using the doed lines as your guide. Tuck the last ap under so that book will stay closed.

Cut books out as one piece. Fold in half. Write answers inside.

Cut book out as one piece. Fold on doed lines to form a tri-fold book.

Inside the book: write one way that cells are used on each secon.

What

’s in

the

cells

?

Cut out as one piece. Fold in half. Let your student use the inside of the le folder to write about pollinaon.

WORKER QUEEN

DRONE

Cut out each rectangle. Stack in order with cover on front and staple at the top of the book.

Time Flower Size Flower Color Number of Bees

Time Flower Size Flower Color Number of Bees

Time Flower Size Flower Color Number of Bees

Cut out bee logs on the previous page. Go outside and observe bees and record what you see. Store observaon cards in the pocket. (Print more cards as needed.)

To assemble pocket:Cut out as one piece. Fold the back up. Fold the aps around the back and glue down.

Bee observations

A honeybee would

have to visit 2

million flowers to

make...

The average honey-

bee worker makes

how much honey in

her lifetime?

Cut out each book as one piece (six total). Fold on solid line. Fold again so that the bee is covering the words. Finish the statements/write the answers on the inside of the books.

Consider prinng these pages on colored paper (unless your student wants to color all the bees).

Bees are the only

insect who...

A honeybee will fly

up to _____ miles

away in search

of food.

A honeybee takes

1,600 trips from

the hive to the

flower and back to

make...

Queen bees lay as

many as 2,000

eggs each day.

That’s one egg

every...

Honeybees use their proboscises to suck the nectar out of the flowers.

The honeybees return to the hive and pass the nectar to other worker bees.

These "house bees" "chew" the nectar for about half an hour.

The worker bees continue by spreading the nectar throughout the honeycombs where water evaporates from it.

The bees make the nectar dry even faster by fanning it with their wings.

Once the honey is thick enough, the bees seal off the cell of the honeycomb with a plug of wax.

Fold paper in half. Cut around hon-ey jar shape to form a honey jar shaped book. Let your student cut and paste the statements to the in-side of the book in the correct order.

Cut each piece out on the solid black lines. . Let your student write the

correct words above the definitions. Stack together and attach w

ith a brass fastener w

here indicated.

a bitter yellowish brown pollen and nectar mixture stored in honeycomb cells; it is used by the honeybees as food

the eggs and larvae in the colony

a chamber shaped like a hexagon and built out of beeswax

the eggs and larvae in the colony

a group of animals living together

home to a colony of bees

insects that work and live together in a community

a milky, yellow syrup that worker bees produce and feed to potential queen bees when they are larvae

a fine powdery substance produced by the anthers of a flower

a great number of honeybees leaving together from a hive with a queen to start a new colony elsewhere

chemical substance (as a scent) that is produced by an animal and serves as a signal to other individuals of the same species

long, tube like tongue

a sticky substance that bees collect from trees; they use it as glue to seal parts of the beehive which protects it from the weather

Cut each piece out on the solid black lines. . Let your student write the

words and definitions on each piece. Stack together and attach w

ith a brass fastener w

here indicated.

Cut book out as one piece. Fold in half.

Use the inside to write about how bees construct their hives.

Use clip-arts below to decorate your lapbook.