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| Do you want to Bee Scene? We need you to visit your local natural space which could be a park, footpath or even your school grounds, between April and August 2012 and let us know which of the fifteen Bee Scene wildflowers you can find. The map shows the results of surveys that have taken place between April and August 2012. The map is blank now and ready for you to input your 2012 survey results. For those of you who are looking to get involved this year who would like free resources sending out to you please download the application form and email it to us or post it to Wild About Plants, Plantlife, 14 Rollestone Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 1DX. Hard copies of resources are limited however all resources are available to download from this page. Should you have any queries please contact Rachel. | |
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 Bee Scene expeditioners out and about |
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| Welcome to Bee Scene 2012! In 2011 1400 of you who took part in the Bee Scene survey in your local green space. How many of you will take part in 2012 and find out how good our country is for supporting bumblebees? The April 2012 newsletter is available now. Our April 2012 newsletter invites you to register for this year's survey and gives you a few more activity ideas to encourage you to get out and about in your school grounds and local green spaces. |
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By Jo Mullett, April 30, 2010 @ 6:56 am
Sounds a great project – is it avaiable for schools and youth groups outside England? I am based in Wales and would love to promote the project. It is shame if not! Thanks Jo
By plantlife, May 13, 2010 @ 10:21 am
It is great that we have had two entries from Norfolk in the east of the country and interesting to notice that in both cases areas surveyed were regarded as not good for bees. This is in contrast to other areas in the country. Could one explanation be that the east side of the country is often colder than the west and we have been having a lot of cold winds from the north recently too. Perhaps many of the wildflowers that are starting to come into flower in areas like the south west are yet to appear in the east. Does anyone else have any other explanations?
By Ashton Forest School, May 28, 2010 @ 7:10 am
We have just taken a group of Year 1 and 2 children to complete the survey in two different areas of the village. The children were able to compare the wildflowers on a woodland and meadow site, and it was clearly apparent which would make a more favourable habitat for bees.
By rendcomb, June 16, 2010 @ 3:23 pm
Year 5 pupils spent an hour investigating our woodland and meadow area with great success. They found lots of wildflowers and many busy bees.The children certainly learnt a lot from the survey.
By Petersgate Infant School, June 21, 2010 @ 7:34 am
The Year 2 pupils carried out the survey last Tuesday during our Environment Week. We surveyed eight different areas of our school playing field and its margins, and wildlife areas. We did find lots of different wildflowers and identified three different types of bumblebee (red tailed, white tailed and (we think) common carder bee), we also noted the time of day and weather. It was quite a windy day and we too wondered whether the number of bees was affected by this as we seemed to observe more of them in the sheltered ares. We also noticed different types of bee in our school gardens but were unable to identfy them all. They covered the cotoneaster and it sounded as if they were watching the World Cup!
By Dawn Copeman, June 30, 2010 @ 7:22 am
I did the survey with my daughter and a friend’s daughter – both of whom are home-educated. They loved the education pack and had real fun finding the varieties of wild-flower in our communal gardens – which are more like a small park with several areas set aside for wildflowers. My daughter wondered why birds-foot trefoil wasn’t listed in the type of bee-friendly flowers as in our garden we noticed that this particular flower was very popular with bees.
By Rainow Primary School, June 30, 2010 @ 2:45 pm
Year 6 at Rainow Primary did the survery today and found plenty of wild flowers which are great for bees and pollinating insects in their wonderful school grounds. The children all enjoyed the survery and are proud that their scholl has taken part in this important national survery
By Discovery Quest Walking Project, July 1, 2010 @ 7:17 am
We surveyed a field at Tuttington in East Anglia and found at least 11 out of the fifteen Bee Scene Flowers and also quite a range of other flowers too, showing that there are still areas in East Anglia that can provide good habitat for bees. There were also lots of bees evident on the site and a bees nest in a roundhouse on the field!
By st. marys primary school gardening club Beverley, July 7, 2010 @ 9:33 am
We did our survey with menbers of the gardening club from KS2.
We found plenty of wild flowers around the school field and wild area and we have planted some more wild flower seeds near the vegetable garden.We all enjoyed taking part in the Bee scene survey.We are now enjoying making bee houses.we have also planted wild flowers in the school courtyard.This was a great activity.
Our next project is to plant our sunflowers out into the vegetable plot.
By Mrs E Thorne, July 21, 2010 @ 11:42 am
Year 2 at Newport C.E. Primary School on the Isle of Wight looked at the hedgerows surrounding the school, the field itself and the pond area. We found brambles, dog roses, red campion, red clover and white clover. As well as a few bees, we found damsel flies and dragon flies. A few days before, a swarm of honey bees from a hive crossed the playground, set up a temporary home in one of our boundary trees, before finding a new hive. A bee keeper came to explain the process.
By Tanya lewis, September 22, 2010 @ 9:53 am
We really enjoyed working on this project at varying levels of ability and interest.
We made solitary bee homes after discovering which plants the bees particularly liked and kept a small photo diary of different kind of bees visting our site.
We have been given permission from the council to keep our own bees at the allotment now, which is very exciting.
By Susan Buxton & Ruth Knowles, May 14, 2011 @ 1:33 am
St Michael’s Nursery & Infants School have had great fun again this year completing a Survey recording how many different flowers they could find in the school environment.The children noticed the improvement with the addition of a vegetable garden created by the gardening club and the planting of flowers since last years survey.The children were pleased with the results, on completion of a bee survey
The children noticed the increase in bees especially on the flowers the bees are attracted too.The children have worked hard improving their environment by adding a Bug Hotel, making bee homes and planting a variety of saplings to develop our school grounds.We look forward to planting sunflowers and continuing to ensure our school grounds give us lot’s of opportunities to enjoy and learn.
By Miss Newman, July 15, 2011 @ 7:28 am
We spent an afternoon surveying our school grounds. We saw over 50 bees, mainly white tailed and red tailed bumbles. Although our grounds are good for bees, we have decided to plant some more clover. Also our Year 6 children designed and planted up a bee garden. This was shown at RHS Wisley and is now part of our minibeast area. Year 2 have really enjoyed looking at bees this summer, especially the pollen bags!
By Mrs Salmon, July 19, 2011 @ 10:05 am
At Petersgate Infant School we completed our survey with Year 1′s a fews weeks ago during Environment Week. Unforunately it was rather a wet week so at first the number of bees we saw seemed to be down on last year. We still have a wide variety of wild flowers (and we were able to identify some new ones this year) around the school grounds and some mixed garden beds and we did see a variety of bees. It was fairly buzzing with bees (mostly white tailed) around the lime tree blossom underneath which it was quite sheltered away from the rain.
By Pat Mellor, July 20, 2011 @ 4:14 am
We have carried out our bee scence survey in our school gardens which are planted with flowers and wild flowers to attract bees and beneficial insects. During the warm weather we have watched with interest all the different types of bees collecting nectar from our lovely flowers. I have given out the survey to children in key stage one and to the gardening club members. We have seen the white tailed bumble bee, the buff tailed bumble bee and the Garden bumblebee (I didn’t realise that there were so many different species of bumblebee). We also have all the flower colours on your chart and all the varieties in our Stumpery Wildlife Garden so it is definately a good place for bees. Thank you for a brilliant survey.
By Greg Hewitt, April 19, 2012 @ 9:27 am
Hi,
Are you contacting local schools about this? Have you contacted any already? I’m part of the Southampton and Eastleigh Friends of the Earth group and I could perhaps send this link to my local schools (if you haven’t already)?
Kind Regards,
Greg
By plantlife, April 19, 2012 @ 9:37 am
Hi Greg,
Thanks for getting in touch. We try to let as many people as possible know about the Bee Scene survey but rely heavily on workd of mouth and so if you can help in any way it would be really appreciated.
Best wishes
Rachel – Wild About Plants Project Manager
By Sue Buxton, May 6, 2012 @ 1:48 pm
St Michael’s Nursery & Infants School Aylsham Norfolk are really keen to complete the bee scene survey. This year maybe because of the unusual weather we have noted a lack of bee’s in our school grounds. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this.
Or is it just the Norfolk area.
For the last two years the children have had great fun throughout the school noting the increase in bees. This year we have planted a wild flower garden so hopefully when the bee’s finally appear they will be happy buzzing around and pollinating our vegetable garden.
By plantlife, May 8, 2012 @ 7:41 am
Wow you are a lot of busy bees! It sounds like your garden will be a wonderful place for all sorts of pollinators and we look forward to seeing your survey results on our map. Rachel – Wild About Plants Project Manager
By Susan Buxton, May 16, 2012 @ 10:50 am
I would like to share with you a lovely piece of writing by Louis Miller aged 5years,8 months. Louis worked independently after completing our bee survey at St Michael’s Nursery and Infants School Aylsham.
Bee’s sting people when they get annoyed,they collect pollen and nectar from the flowers with their suckers. They live in a hive and the queen bee lays 1000 eggs the male bees get the nectar and pollen from the flowers and they feed their babies.
The week we decide to do our survey was cold and very wet unfortunately we did not have a very successful week so we recorded our bee information and we have agreed we will do another survey when our wild flower garden develops to compare our findings.
By plantlife, May 17, 2012 @ 5:39 am
Louis, what a lot you have learned about bees and their relationship with plants. We are all so pleased that your school has taken part in our survey and hope that it is sunny and warm when you decide to do it again. I wonder why you didn’t see any bees when it was cold and wet. Do you have any ideas why that was the case? We really look forward to receiving your next set of survey results. From the Wild About Plants Team