The United Nations has designated May 20 as World Bee Day to raise awareness about the importance of these key pollinators. For it to be more than just another day on the calendar, let’s consider a few different ways that kids can help celebrate World Bee Day. Giving children more knowledge and hands-on activities will likely help them feel more invested, more accountable, and more interested in supporting the plight of these pollinators!
The theme of this year’s World Bee Day is “Bee inspired by nature to nourish us all“.
(N.B. Much of the information below can also found in this post.)
5 Ways to Celebrate World Bee Day:
- Learn about bees.
- Understand bees’ importance.
- Do a bee-centered project/craft.
- Participate in citizen science.
- Make changes in our daily lives.
How to Celebrate World Bee Day
1. Learn more about bees.
Bees are fascinating creatures! Learn more about them by visiting your local library, observing them in nature, or reading a few fun facts:
- There are at least 21,000 different species of bees around the world.
- A bumblebee flaps its wings about 200 times per second.
- Honeybee foragers have to (collectively) travel over 55,000 miles (88,514 km) and visit about 2 million flowers to collect enough nectar to make one pound of honey. The average forager will only make about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
- 90 percent of a bee colony’s population is comprised of female worker bees, maintaining the hive and population.
- The average worker honey bee visits 50-100 flowers in a single collection trip.
- The worker honey bee can carry pollen and nectar equal to 80% her body weight.
- A bee has a sense of smell as much as 100 times more powerful than a human’s.
resources (websites):
- https://www.earwolf.com/episode/how-can-we-be-less-rude-to-bees-with-prof-james-nieh/
- https://thebeeconservancy.org/why-bees/
- https://thebeeconservancy.org/ground-nesting-bees/
- Activity sheet for Australian native bees: https://bushblitz.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Kids-activity-sheet.pdf
- https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/mason_bees.shtml
resources (books):
- Turn This Book into a Beehive! and 19 other Experiments and Activities that Explain the Amazing World of Bees | Lynn Brunelle | ages 8-12
- Mason Meets a Mason Bee | Dawn Pape | ages 4-11
- The Bee Book | Charlotte Milner | ages 3-8
- If Bees Disappeared | Lily Williams | ages 4-8 years
- Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera | Candice Fleming | ages 4-9
- Our Native Bees: North America’s Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them | Paige Embry
- 100 Plants to Feed the Bees: Provide a Healthy Habitat to Help Pollinators Thrive | Xerces Society
- The Bee Friendly Garden: Easy ways to help the bees and make your garden grow | Doug Purdie
2. Understand bees’ importance.
- Bees pollinate an estimated one-third of the food we eat. Without them, we wouldn’t have apples, strawberries, almonds, coffee, avocados, chocolate… and more!
- “Honeybees in particular play a huge role in agriculture, contributing over $15 billion to the value of US crop production.” (The Bee Conservancy)
- Native bees pollinate an estimated 80 percent of the planet’s flowering plants.
- Native bees are very effective pollinators — at least 2-3 times better than honeybees!
- Native bees are vital for both biodiversity (often serving as the sole pollinator for some plants) and agriculture (pollinating a large percentage of plants from which we base our diet).
Unfortunately, bees are under threat.
- “Intensive farming practices, land-use change, mono-cropping, pesticides and higher temperatures associated with climate change all pose problems for bee populations and, by extension, the quality of food we grow.” (United Nations)
- “Scientists have estimated that globally, 1 in 6 bee species is regionally extinct and more than 40 percent are vulnerable to extinction.” (Center for Biological Diversity)
As we better understand their importance, hopefully we’ll be more motivated to support their conservancy.
3. Do a bee-centered craft or project to celebrate World Bee Day.
** Please note that without regular maintenance/cleaning to prevent pathogens and parasites, bee hotels have the potential to do more harm than good. Make sure you’re ready to commit! **
4. Participate in citizen science.
Look for citizen science projects that empower ‘ordinary’ citizens to help scientists monitor bee populations and inform their conservation efforts. One example is the U.S. National Native Bee Monitoring Research Coordination Network, which pairs citizen scientists with experts to help identify the photos and data that is submitted.
Other projects include:
- The Great Sunflower Project (US)
- Bumble Bee Watch (North America)
- The Great American Bee Count (US)
- BeeWatch (UK)
- Spot-A-Bee (UK)
- Bee Spotter (US)
- Scroll to the end of this page for state-specific projects (US)
For more information on citizen science with kids, see:
Citizen science for kids: engaging with nature while helping to save it
5. Make changes in our daily lives.
- buy raw honey from local farmers
- avoid using chemicals in our gardens
- share bee facts with friends and family to spark their interest/concern
- do school projects on the importance of native bees
- sponsor/adopt hive (one example here)
- donate to an organization that supports bees
- Xerces Society
- Project Apis M
- Bees for Development
- Pollinator Partnership
- The Bee Conservancy
- several more international organizations listed here
World Bee Day is a wonderful opportunity to focus on the importance of bees and highlight the need to support them. There are several ways to celebrate World Bee Day, from planting pollinator gardens to participating in citizen science projects. By empowering children with knowledge and actionable steps, we can cultivate a generation committed to helping bees and the ecosystems they support.
More resources:
