The Fairy-Land of Science · Lecture X, part 1 · Part 10: Lecture X: Bees and flowers
27. Why flowers are bright and sweet
Goal: Your child can explain that bright colors and sweet scents invite insects to carry pollen, that bees keep to one kind of flower on a trip, and that wind-blown plants have plain flowers.
You'll need
- A garden, park or field with flowers on a warm day
- A notebook and pencil for a tally
- Colored paper: one blue and one yellow square, and a few drops of sugar water
- Science notebook and pencils
What's in the book
Pages 212 to 218. Lying under a walnut tree watching bees; a bee keeps to one kind of flower each trip; flowers make honey to pay insects to carry their pollen; grasses and trees like oaks and willows use the wind instead and have no bright flowers; Sir John Lubbock's test showing bees know colors; flowers that call with scent; and flowers that open and close at certain times or before rain.
The lesson, step by step
Hook question
SayWhy do you think flowers are so beautiful? Who are they beautiful for?
Let your child guess. Buckley's answer: mostly for the insects!
Read together
Read pages 212 and 213.
There are plenty of different plants growing in the flower-bed, but, curiously enough, she does not go first to one kind and then to another; but keeps to one, perhaps the mignonette, the whole time, till she flies away.
Then page 215, the flowers' invitation:
Come to me, and I will give you honey if you will bring me pollen-dust in exchange, so that my seeds may grow healthy and strong.
Try it: watch a bee
Go out on a warm, sunny day to some flowers. Choose one bee and follow her with your eyes from a few steps away. Make a tally: which flowers does she visit? Does she keep to one kind, as Buckley says?
Safety: watch bees from a few steps away and keep still; never swat at them or touch a hive or a swarm. Anyone allergic to stings should stay indoors and watch through a window.
Plain flowers and the wind
Read or tell pages 215 and 216. Grasses, oaks and willows have tiny, plain flowers with lots of pollen dust, and the wind carries it, so they don't need insects. Look at grass flowers in summer: they are hardly flowers at all.
Lubbock's color test
Read pages 216 and 217. Sir John Lubbock trained bees to find honey on blue glass, then moved the honey to red.
They went first to the blue glass, expecting to find the honey on the usual colour
Optional: put a drop of sugar water on a blue paper square and on a yellow one outdoors near flowers, and watch from a distance which one insects find first.
Open by day, open by night
Read page 217.
The daisy receives its name day's eye, because it opens at sunrise and closes at sunset
Evening primroses and honeysuckle smell strongest at dusk to call the night moths. Some flowers close up before rain to keep their pollen and honey dry.
Tell it back and check
Your child tells back why flowers are colorful. Then ask:
1. Does a bee mix different kinds of flowers on one trip?
2. Why don't grasses need bright flowers?
3. Why do some flowers smell sweetest at night?
What we know now
Bees see blue, purple and yellow well, but red looks dark to them. They can also see ultraviolet light, which we can't; many flowers have ultraviolet stripes pointing to the honey that only insects can see.
Afterwards
Notice it this week: check a daisy or dandelion in the morning and evening: open or closed? Smell honeysuckle or other flowers at dusk.
Tip
The best bee-watching is on warm, still, sunny days, mid-morning to mid-afternoon.
Answers to the book's problems
1. No; she usually keeps to one kind of flower each trip. 2. The wind carries their pollen for them. 3. To call the moths that fly at night.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.