Cool presentation idea

[xC0000005]

I did a presentation on beekeeping and honeybees yesterday for a non profit children's group - one that provides activities for disabled children. My presentation was short and to the point, and I had a table set up with old smokers, veils, hats, an observation hive, a miniature (1/2 scale) hive, hive tools, comb, honey to taste, candles, and pollen. At the end of the "presentation" portion I told the adults and kids - "Everything on this table can be touched. Picked up, smelled, worn, tasted with a toothpick. If it's dropped, things are ok. If it breaks, I'll fix it or build a new one." Then we let the kids come up. I had an observation hive as well, and one of the volunteers there hit on an idea that made me smile:

Each child was given a chance to wear the hat and veil, and then, smoker in hand, they took a picture of him next to the observation hive with the honey.

They printed the pictures on a photo printer.
When the parents arrived they took home the styrofoam and pipe cleaner "bees" the kids had made, their little jar of honey, and each got their child's picture as a "beekeeper".

[Oldbee]

That WAS a,..... 'cool' presentation!

"When the parents arrived they took home the styrofoam and pipe cleaner ""bees"" the kids made, their 'little' jar of honey, and each got their child's picture as a "beekeeper".

A great job! And their [parents] child's picture as a 'beekeeper';... the wonders of technology.

[dickm]

Great Job Jason,
I copied your post and sent it to a number of our members who do presentations. I'm always careful to bring out the OB hive last because thats the end of them paying attention to me. I will add the picture idea; it's great.

dickm

[panthercreekbees]

The styrofoam and pipe cleaner idea is great, I have a presentation this Sat. to a home school group. Can you give me an idea as how you put the bee together.

[Tom G. Laury]

I see a lot of people happy to be associated with bees! Kids and parents both! I'll bet those pics are all over the fridge doors already. Great job!

[RayMarler]

Sounds like a grande presentation you had there, very nice idea and execution!

I myself have been giving some presentations this year to elementary schools in the area and really do enjoy it. Me and my partner try to keep the presentations to an hour to hour and a half so the wearing suit and pic wouldn't work. Sometimes we have 3 ages/classes at once in a multi-purpose room or gym, so the pics ina suit would take way too long.

I have all the equipment on a table with an observation hive but don't have a real hive box or combs. I'm going to start taking a real box of combs with honey and pollen and incorporate the touch and feel aspect you mentioned.

What we do is at the end, we open the observation hive and have the children walk by in single file and pic out the queen, I describe what is in view in the hive, and then they walk on past to the next table where my partner is handing out bites of honeycomb. This seems to be nice the kids really enjoy it.

I've also found that at some schools they have the children sitting on the floor in a half circle around me and my partner, and from now on I want to try to be at the same level as the children, not standing while they are on the floor. Last time that happened, I sat and leaned forward and down so that I was a bit more on their level.

[xC0000005]

You have to keep in mind that when it comes to arts and crafts my kids are ten thousand times better than I, but a (cheap!) styrofoam bee is a bag of 30 2 inch styrofoam balls (on clearance, local craft store). Bag of black pipe cleaners cut into 3 inch segments (you should've seen the look on my wife's face when I took out the tinsnips and cut them into pieces still in the bag. Pipe cleaners are the legs. They are the antenna. The wings, those aren't pipe cleaners. Ok, I lied. The wings are pipe cleaners too. It's only a bee because I said it was. The kids didn't mind.

Some notes on costs: I did not provide the honey for the little jars (but I did replace the nasty store bought clover honey they served with lunch with some fireweed. Clover honey is just barely honey in my book). I bought at a thrift store a chocolate mold that makes "chocolate bar" type molds and I cast 1/4 inch wax segments the night before. The older kids got one of these. So my total costs (not including gas) were around $12. Pipe cleaners and styrofoam balls are cheap, I already had the other stuff. Photo printers run about .35 per picture, so if I had paid for that you could multiply it out by the number of kids and get total costs for that sort of thing.

As for the presentation, I want kids to touch and handle and pick up and play and smell, I want them to feel the veil and try to get it on their head. I want them to peer into the miniature hive and taste the honey and smell the lemongrass oil. To peer into the hive in wonder and confusion and fascination and maybe just a drop of fear to make their skin tingle. I have more smokers than I know what to do with. I have frames and extra frames and so many supers i could loose one in the tall grass and be pleasantly suprised in the spring when I found it. I built the model hive. If it breaks, I can build another. I put in the foundation and there's no shortage of that.

All the words I could spin can't teach them as much as their fingers across the texture of open comb. The scent of ash from the smoker, the faint ting of honey drifing from the hive. The low hum of bees drying nectar punctuated with sharp buzzing as two bees squeeze past each other. The taste of liquid joy on a tiny plastic straw, and the wrinkled noses as they tried the store bought honey and mine. "I hate this," said one boy about the clover honey as he sample the fireweed and then clover over and over. "Do you want some more?" said his teenaged assistant? "More, please," he said.

I know a fair amount about bees. I could tell them fascinating things about the inner workings of the colony. I had trouble deciding which things to cut and what to add, but I kept the presentation short and to the point, focusing on on just a few key facts. Maybe some of those will stay around long enough to survive to tomorow's dreams. While I was gathering up my stuff I listened to a couple of boys in the lobby. They were playing together, flying their styrofoam bees like buzzing fighter planes. Their faces were still glazed with honey and I couldn't wait to see which part of the bee facts I had told them they were discussing.

"I saw a bee," said the first one.
"So did I," said the other.
"It was cool," said the first.

It is a start.

[summer1052]

You can also make bees (and any number of other fun critters) with 2 hex sections of a cardboard egg carton. Cut out together, add wings, legs, and eyes, etc.

Clover honey may not be real honey in your book, but it may be the only kind a lot of people have been able to taste. Good idea to bring a varietal.

:D
Summer

[Carl F]

Fantastic! You probably have no idea how meaningful it was to those children to be told that they could touch and hold anything on the table and that if it got broken it could be fixed. We constantly send messages, perhaps without meaning to, that they can not be trusted and that they are not capable. I'll bet that you could do that a hundred times and take everything home none the worse for wear. You valued and trusted those children and they will almost always return that without fail--disabled or not.

I hope you went home after that as proud or more so than if you took every blue ribbon at the fair--you should!

My hat is off to you.:applause:

Carl F.

[livetrappingbymatt]

Great guide to giving these thank you.
I have one to give this fall and needed ideas so yours will be helpful.Thanks again
bob