Fresh From The Vines

Sustainable Farm and Bakery

Lesson 1: Pollination: Honeybees in their Ecosystem
Objective: Students will gain a basic knowledge of the process of pollination, how it provides us with food, and how food production is affected by seasonal differences and environmental disturbances. They will also gain a stronger sense of relation to honeybees.

Key Points:

  • Agriculture is a critical component of our food systems
  • Pollination is a vital element of agriculture and honeybees are a key pollinators
  • Without pollination plants are unable to produce fruit
  • Seasonal weather cycles affect food production systems

Academic State Standards Covered:

  • 4.2.4 Renewable and Nonrenewable Resources
    • A. Identify the needs of people
  • 4.3.4 Environmental Health
    • A. Know that plants, animals and humans are dependent on air and water.
  • 4.4.4 Agriculture and Society
    • A. Know the importance of agriculture to humans
      • Explain the influence of agriculture on food, clothing, shelter and culture
  • 4.6.4. Ecosystems and their Interactions
    • A. Understand that living things are dependent on nonliving things in the environment for survival.
    • B. Understand the concept of cycles.
    • C. Identify how ecosystems change over time.

Materials:

  • Different color headbands to distinguish honeybees, trees, and apple farmer
  • Strips of paper to represent pollen (around 300)
  • Envelopes (one for each apple tree)
  • Pictures of honeybees/ observation hive if available

Opening (10 min.):

Students sit in a circle with instructor. Students are prompted to list what they know about honeybees (this is used as a beginning gauge of the student’s current impressions of bees). Instructor tells students that today they will be learning more about how important honeybees are to us.

Introduction to New Material (10 min.):

Students will be asked to list their favorite fruits. Instructor will explain that honeybees help the plants that provide us with these fruits to make fruit through a process called pollination. Honeybees fly from plant to plant collecting pollen in their pollen baskets, and nectar in their honey stomachs. When they move from one plant to another, they take pollen from one and leave some on the next plant, pollinating it. If bees do not visit these plants, they will not be able to produce fruit. When they have filled their honey stomachs and pollen baskets, the bees return to their hives and store their collected pollen and nectar in the honeycomb to make honey. Allow time for questions.

Activity (25 min.):

  1. Instructor will assign different roles: 1/3 of class will act as apple trees and the rest as honeybees
  2. Each apple tree will be given a basket/ envelope with paper strips representing pollen. Each honeybee will have a headband or hat distinguishing them as a honeybee.
  3. Tape off (or distinguish in some other way) an area of the classroom to be the beehive. Tell honeybees that they start and end each season by going inside of their hive. Position apple trees on the other side of the classroom (make sure that it will be safe for children to run back and forth from trees and hive). This may be best preformed outside.
  4. Instructor will tell the class that they are an apple farmer; an apple farm is called an orchard. Explain that in order for an apple tree to produce apples, each apple blossom needs to be pollinated by a honeybee. Tell the apple trees that each time a honeybee comes up to their tree, they need to give it a piece of their pollen, and if the bee has a piece of pollen it its hand they need to take the pollen and put it in their basket.
  5. Explain that at the end of the season, each apple tree will give the new pollen strips that they received to the apple farmer and we will count how many apples the orchard grew that season.
  6. Allow one minute for each season.
    1. Season 1: Standard explained above
    2. Season 2: It has been colder than normal, honeybees are slow and sluggish. (Tell all honeybees that they must fly in slow motion.)
    3. Season 3: A virus has infected the hive. Explain that honeybees can get sick just like humans. Only half bees are left to pollinate. (Half of the honeybees sit out this season.)
    4. Season 4: The hive grew to become overcrowded and half the honeybees swarmed, leaving the orchard to find a new home. (Half of the honeybees sit out this season.)
    5. Season 5: An ice storm this past winter has damaged our apple trees. Now only half of the branches on each tree have pollen. (Take half of the pollen from each apple tree).
    6. Season 6: It has been a cold, damp summer. Honeybees have been forced to stay inside their hive often. (Tell honeybees that after each apple tree visit, they have to run back to their hive before going to a new tree).
  7. At the conclusion of each season collect pollen strips from each tree. Count them with the class and write in a visible location how many apples the farm was able to produce each season.

* This activity was adapted from “Buzzy, Buzzy, Bee,” Project Food, Land & People, 2003)

Assessment/ Closing (10 min.):

Have everyone sit back in a circle (with apple totals still visible) and ask what they notice about the amount of apples produced each season. Talk about how the different variables of each season affect all food production systems. Ask each student (proceeding around the circle) to identify one thing that they learned about honeybees or pollination today.