ALL ABOUT BEES: AN EDUCATIONAL BOOK FOR CHILDREN OF PRIMARY SCHOOL AGE

Why write a book about bees for small children?

Reference to "birds and bees" has been used for years as a Victorian euphemism for sex education, yet there is more ignorance about the biology of bees than human reproduction and of their vital role in food production. Where better to start than with the education of children?

Years of talking to children of all ages at shows and in school classrooms have yielded abundant evidence that children are interested and feed-back from teachers and children is particularly encouraging. The greatest rewards when demonstrating live bees in a show case at public functions is seeing the eager faces and enquiring eyes of small children as they gaze in wonder at the bees and hearing their searching questions; questions often more basic than those posed by adults and more difficult to answer in terms meaningful to a child. Referring to bees in a display case a typical such question is, "How do you get the bees in there"? Presuming that the poor kids envisage the beekeeper going from flower to flower picking up the bees one by one and putting them in the case, how does one explain about beehives and frames of bees in a brief few minutes and in a language understandable by a small child? Another challenge has arisen several times. After explaining that the worker bees are all female, all the work being done by the girls, the question came, "How do you know they are female?" How do you answer a question such as this factually and in terms a five or six year old can understand?

It is gratifying that beekeepers are asked to talk to schools and to know that the subject finds a place in curricula. There are already many books on beekeeping and in this age of the internet, when even children have access via mobile phone, tablet or computer, is there a need for a book specifically devoted to them? The project was embarked upon in the belief that there will always be a place for the written word, for a book which parents can read to small children or for older children to curl up with and read or refer to off the shelf.

This is a small introductory book directed to young age groups. Another for older age groups, high school teenagers, is wider ranging with attention to the biology of bees and more detail about beekeeping.