Busy bees and flowers
Bees and flowers help each other. Find out what a bee takes from a flower, how it carries yellow pollen from flower to flower, and be a bee yourself.
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A bee is an insect. It has six legs, three body parts, two antennae and wings.[8]
Bees visit flowers to get food: sweet nectar and a yellow dust called pollen.[1]
Pollen sticks to the bee's hairy body and legs. When the bee visits the next flower, some pollen rubs off.[1]
When pollen moves from one flower to another, the flower can make seeds. This is called pollination.[1]
Many foods we eat, like apples, cherries, blueberries and pumpkins, need insects to pollinate their flowers.[2]
There are many kinds of bees. Most bees do not live in a hive at all: they live on their own.[4]
Try it: Be a bee
You need
- Two paper flowers (cut out in advance), one yellow and one white
- Yellow chalk
- A fluffy pom-pom or a fuzzy pipe cleaner (the 'hairy bee')
- A smooth plastic bead or a smooth pebble (the 'smooth bee')
- Dark paper to work on
Safety
Keep chalk away from eyes and mouths and do not blow the chalk dust. Wash hands afterwards. An adult cuts out the paper flowers.
What to do
- Rub yellow chalk in the middle of the yellow flower. This is the pollen.
- Your fluffy bee lands in the middle of the yellow flower. Press it gently.
- Fly your bee to the white flower and press it gently in the middle.
- Look: is there yellow 'pollen' on the white flower now?
- Wipe the white flower clean. Now do the same with the smooth bee.
- Which bee carried more pollen: the fluffy one or the smooth one?
What happens, and why?
Pollen sticks to hairs. A real bee carries pollen on its hairy body and legs from one flower to the next. When pollen reaches another flower, the flower can make seeds.[1]
Play: Bee or flower?
Is this part of a bee or part of a flower? Tap the right group.
Your best score is kept only on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Quiz
Other ages: Ages 10–11 · Ages 15–16