Buzzy Business Back in town!

The Bees are Here!  

We are excited to share that our solitary leaf cutter bees are here!  They arrived in the afternoon on May 31st and Grade 4 classes were lucky to view a number of bees that had already hatched and were very active.  Each box houses around 100+ bee pods made of leaves and each pod has one bee waiting to emerge.  Inside of the pods, the bee feasts on nectar and pollen. This ‘bee bread’ was placed inside by the female bee who laid the egg, to nourish the bee when it hatched.

Two grade 4 students visited classrooms to share a few facts about these important pollinators and to let the students observe them.  Here are some facts they shared: 

-Solitary bees are one type of pollinator.

-Pollinators help most of the food we eat to grow. They are responsible for every three bites of food we eat. Without pollination, most of the food we eat would not grow.

-We have solitary bee homes in our Belvedere Parkway garden and these bees will be released there too.

-These bees do not make honey and do not live in hives, they lay eggs in long narrow tubes.

-They are peaceful and gentle insects.

-One leaf cutter bee can pollinate as much as 20 honey bees.

To learn more about leaf cutter bees, please enjoy this video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n09xE5SGq9M

Please see below for photos of our current bee homes at Belvedere Parkway School.  As you can see, one of the homes is full of bee cocoons, which are yet to be hatched, while the other has almost no cocoons in it.  

We are hoping the new bees will stay at their new location and help to pollinate our school garden!