Where would we Bee without them?

Yr 4 Biological Sciences – Where would we bee without them?

Content Description

• Living things have life cycles (ACSSU072)
• Living things depend on each other and the environment to survive (ACSSU073)

This learning activity introduces students to the world of bees and their vital role in our food production. It explains the introduction of honeybees to Australia and how they differ from native bees. It focuses on their features, short life cycle and the specific roles of the queen, worker and drones within the complexities of a bee colony. Background notes provide a useful summary.

Yr4 Biological Sciences – Where would we bee without them? (2.1MB PDF)

Video

The video Where would we Bee without them? explains how bees cross pollinate fruit and vegetable flowers in their search for nectar, how they carry out the various nurturing and cleaning tasks required for the bee colony to survive and how they produce honey. Students see worker bees hard at work gathering pollen and nectar from pumpkin flowers and are introduced to the biosecurity risks from parasites, such as the Varroa mite and the small hive beetle, that are decimating bee populations around the world.

Audio Description version video Bees video transcript (47KB)