I spent a lovely afternoon with a class of children at The Waterside Academy in Chesham.

I was there for about an hour and half talking to them about the honeybees, showing them how the hive is made up and throwing various facts at them. I then asked them questions to see how much they had taken in and opened it up to a question and answer session for them. They really did ask me some great questions. One child asked me if the worker bee could lay eggs. Good Question. Another asked me why there wasn’t a King bee. Good Question. And finally, there is always one that stumps me and this time it was “Is the honeybee related to the wasp?” Once again, I thought I knew the answer but erred on the safe side and said I would google the answer when I got home and send it to them, which I did. The answer is in fact as follows: It’s thought that bees originally evolved from hunting wasps which acquired a taste for nectar and decided to become vegetarians. Fossil evidence is sparse but bees probably appeared on the planet about the same time as flowering plants in the Cretaceous period 146 to 74 million years ago!

After the session the children came up and tried on the bee suits, looked through the virtual hive and continued to fire questions about the honeybees at me. Boom! Finally those that wanted to - took home with them images of the Queen Bee to colour in and send to me. I will choose the winning picture and the child will receive a signed soft cover book.

Below are some images taken of during the course of the afternoon.