“The Scientist and the Entreprenuer”. Jane Geddes Introduces Children to Beekeeping.

This week Jane Geddes talks about introducing young children to the world of honey bees. She turns her kitchen into a lab and creates a wonderful space for exploration. Jane has written previous guest blogs on bee biology and a colony’s demise. Thank you, Jane, for another wonderful story of adventure.

“Jane, can we do some beekeeping?” : (A visit from The Scientist and The Entrepreneur).

The Boys Next Door paid me a visit at the weekend. I was exhausted from taking the first opportunity this year to change all my colonies’ hive parts, remove the few frames of honey (unbelievably my bees have given me some spring honey- for the first time!) and treat for varroa.

The boys bounced up the drive, full of energy, questions and chatter. I was, in contrast, soaked in sweat, hair plastered to my head, taking 5 minutes to rest my weary bones. A beautiful warm day with no wind, sunny and still… I should have been in shorts and T-shirt, lying reading!

Apiary Spring-Clean.

I had spent the day scorching clean hive parts from their winter storage area in the bee shed. I think of this change of brood boxes, supers, cover boards and roofs as changing the beds, with clean, fresh, white sheets. Some frames of old comb had been removed and replaced with clean frames of foundation. Of course, my Boys Next Door wanted some chat and questions answered,

“Jane, what’s that?”

 “Can we do some beekeeping with you today?”

 “Ewwww is that DEAD?”

“Can we help you harvest more honey?” (The Entrepreneur had assisted with some honey extraction when he was 4 and has never forgotten)

and

“I got stung at Nana and Papa’s but it didn’t hurt” (The Scientist)

“Where’s the honey?” (both…)

On showing them, and letting them sniff, crumble, scrunch a large piece of white, light comb they were both stunned how light it was, how clean and “sparkly” and wanted more.

They departed after about an hour and I collapsed in a heap with a coffee in the garden. I love them to bits – their endless curiosity and enthusiasm sparks exactly the same response in me.

It would be remiss of me, I think, not to follow up that hour of constant questions and chatter with nothing. I thought of showing them inside a brood nest (from the top with a glass cover board) but this depends on quiet movements and focus. This would probably be a short- lived thing, I think, given their ages. So, I removed a half -filled old brood frame from the pile set aside for disposal. There remained quite a lot of pollen of different colours, and an amount of nectar.

Return Visit.

They returned 2 days later for some more chat, mainly because The Entrepreneur (aged 7) had messaged me on his Mum’s phone to ask “Can we come over and do some beekeeping, Jane?” with a long line of bee emojis.

Beekeeping playtime!

I had recently bought a dissection kit (along with microscopes) to attempt dissection and making up slides for the identification of pollen) which I have been doing on and off for a while with Ann. I had bright table lights, magnification glasses, and all the tools you could wish for for two young boys to get messy with and learn at the same time. They would lead the exploration, and I would chip in and answer if there were any questions….. (!)

My plan was to let them freely explore the frame with any implement they wanted (with explanations around the potential dangers). I reasoned that, if Swedish Nursery children can be introduced to whittling with knives at age 4, The Boys Next Door would be fine. They were.

Science Lab.

The Science lab was duly set up on the kitchen table. 2 Lamps, the brood frame, some brood with Drone pupae (this was rejected outright), 2 dissection kits, magnifying glasses, paper, pencils (in case they wanted to draw), and damp cloths in a bowl to wipe sticky fingers.

I held my breath, slightly apprehensive, partly because of The Entrepreneur’s reaction to the Drone brood. I need not have feared. They literally swarmed all over the frame, exclaiming at the HONEY (‘it’s called nectar”) and so many “WOWs” while digging pollen out from the depths. What followed was a detailed discussion about exactly how the bees transport pollen back to the hive (furry fuzzy bees) and pack it so neatly and into the hard Bee Bread “packages”.

They found pipettes in a box with small sample bottles (jam jars) and began to extract minute amounts of nectar to take home to show Mum. Most of this went into The Scientist’s (aged 4) mouth – “the most AMAZING” taste he had ever had.  The pollen was duly extracted, mashed, smeared between finger and thumbs and tasted (they weren’t fans). We had a long discussion about how bees use pollen which fascinated them.  The concentration on The Scientist’s face and the silence as he worked on extraction, a wee bit of tasting and decanting into the pollen bottle, was amazing to experience.

On the way back home, they discussed various ideas. Apparently next week we are going to town to buy some bright paint. I had acquired two hand- made wooden nuc boxes from an old beekeeper for them. They are planning to paint these boxes, get bees and sell the honey at the gate, at £2 a jar in order to buy some books and “make an income” said The Entrepreneur.

I think I know what I will be doing this summer!!