New project the bees knees
By Siannah McGee, Year 5, Holy Cross School
CLAIR Jenkins is a James Cook University student teacher working in the Prep area and who has come up with the idea to put a native beehive in the school courtyard.
We asked her some questions about the bees and how she came up with the idea to put a native beehive at Holy Cross.
The project on the bees has given Miss Jenkins a great deal more interest in bees.
Miss Jenkins said: “I have learnt so much in doing this project. I didn’t know anything about bees or didn’t even have any interest in them until I began researching. Now I love them.”
Miss Jenkins used the OATH design that was recommended in The Australian Native Bee Book to build the beehive structure.
The wood came from the Bunnings’ scrap pile and the Cairns Buy Back Shop.
“It wasn’t hard to build, it was a lot of fun to learn and experiment,” she said.
The bees are to live on school property and are stingless so they aren’t dangerous.
Miss Jenkins told us that the bees can build a basic home quite quickly, maybe a few weeks or months.
For them to fill up the hive box it will take a year or two. It depends on how strong the hive is. Ours have had many changes in the last month. They are still recovering from their original home breaking, let alone moving the pieces into a hive box and changing their home address twice in the project.
The stingless bees make about a kilogram of honey per year.
Miss Jenkins didn’t built the hive for honey propagation so we’ll have to just look at their pots or weigh the hive to see how fast they are producing honey. I guess it just depends on the type of bees. We have learnt lots. So we are very lucky to have Miss Jenkins working at our school.
She has shared with us her amazing knowledge about bees and sparked an interest with many of us.