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Students and Parents Learn About Bees

In the spring of 2022, beekeeper Clark Sloan and his wife Sharry visited Highplains Library in Greeley, Colorado to conduct an educational lesson about the how honeybees contribute to human and environmental sustainability. Students and parents learned about pollination, the honeybee habitat, lifecycle, facts/myths, threats to the honeybee and how we can help. Clark and Sharry exhibited authentic beekeeping tools, equipment, answered a lot of great questions and shared delicious samples of Clark's of Colorado Wildflower honey with all in attendance.

Thank you to Collen Kulp, Children's Librarian, students and parents for engaging in the experience to learn about one of the most important little critters in the world....HONEYBEES!

Power Point Lesson

HONEYBEES

POLLINATION

Honeybees make it possible for us to have all kinds of FOOD and other PRODUCTS we use every day!

In Colorado, honeybees are used to pollinate 30% of our commercial crops including apples, cherries, peach trees, alfalfa, pumpkins, tomatoes, and melons, among others. Colorado native plants also provide sources of nectar and pollen for honeybees.

HIVES

Honeybees live near gardens, woodlands, orchards, meadows and other areas where flowering plants are abundant. Bees live in groups called colonies. Bees live in bee boxes, where they make honey. Bees like to live in trees too!

BEES IN A COLONY

There are 3 types of bees that live in a colony. There is 1 "queen bee" and she lays all of the eggs that grow into more bees! The female "worker bees" collect food, water, care for the young and make honey. "Drone bees" help make bee eggs.

FRAMES

Clark explains the uses for a hive frame. A hive frame or honey frame is a structural element in a beehive that holds the honeycomb or brood comb within the hive enclosure or box.

Beeswax

Female worker bees convert the honey to beeswax. Bees huddle together to increase the temperature in the hive which enables the wax glands in their abdomen to covert the sugar from honey into beeswax. Sharry Sloan, owner of Sloan Family Farms, makes pure beeswax candles and shares information and samples of raw beeswax which actually smells like honey!