OERRR activity: Happy with the bee on Oud Groevenbeek estate
Do you want to help the bees too? You will learn all kinds of fun facts about the bee, we will visit a very beautiful insect hotel and in the OERRR workshop at the Oud Groevenbeek teahouse we will make seed bombs for the bees to enjoy. This activity is for children 6 years and older.
You probably know it: you are sitting outside in the sun and you hear buzzing. You see something yellow and black hovering. Is it a wasp, a bumblebee or a bee? Do you know the difference? Bees and wasps are very similar, but bees are much hairier than wasps. Also, bees often have a bunch of extra-long hairs on their hind legs, which they use to collect pollen. And did you know that the bumblebee, the fat one that always snorts languidly between flowers, is also a bee?
Shopping bags
If you sit close to some plants, you can hear busy buzzing coming from the calyx of the flower. This is because bees go into flowers in search of nectar, to eat. With their scurrying in the flower, they unwittingly take the flower's pollen with them on their hind legs. When they have collected a lot of pollen, it looks like they are flying around with full shopping bags. By flying from flower to flower, they release some pollen everywhere, fertilizing the plants. Thus the apple tree gets its apples via the blossom and the strawberry plant gets new strawberries.
Cozy nests
As many as 360 species of bees live in the Netherlands! They all like warm, dry holes in which to lay their eggs and raise their larvae. Some bee species prefer to make a nest in the hollow of plant or reed stems or in crevices in walls. Wood and clay are also favorites. But there are some that dig a passage in the soil, such as sand bumblebees. The cuckoo bee makes it very easy for itself: it simply uses the nests of other bees!
Wilderness
Bees love feral gardens. If you have a garden at home, it is nice to cut down on lawn mowing, raking or hoeing. This gives all kinds of wild flowers a chance to grow and the bees have lots of food and clutter to nest in. And even if you don't have a garden but do have a balcony, you can help the bee: put up some plants that bees love, hang an insect hotel, or join us in making seed bombs that you can hang outside!
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