Tell it to the Bees

The practice of “telling the bees” may have its origins in Celtic mythology where the presence of a bee after a death signified the soul leaving the body, but the tradition appears to have been most prominent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the U.S. and Western Europe. 

The ritual of telling it to the bees involves the local people in the community in telling the honey bees of all the major events in their lives, such as deaths or marriages. 

It was important to tell the bees if their keeper died and the bee hive was draped with a black veil or ribbon of mourning. If this custom was omitted or forgotten and the bees were not 'put into mourning' then it was believed a penalty would be paid, such as the bees leaving the hive, stopping to produce honey, or dying.

The ancient Egyptians believed that bees were the tears of the Sun God Ra. They revered bees as messengers of the sun god who could carry their messages to him.

While the traditions varied from country to country, ‘Telling it to the Bees’ always involved notifying the insects  about a death in the family so that the bees could share in the mourning and spread the news far and wide.

For our Bee Loud project we made our own beehive out of a cardboard box were the children of Kiltiernan NS could post their own secret messages to the bees and share their worries, hopes, dreams and stories....

Irish Seed Savers

Visit from Áine Ní Fhlatharta 

Irish Seed Savers

Áine showed us all the native Irish pollinator friendly plants. We learned about annuals, bi-annuals,  perennials and flowering hedgerows. She gave a series of workshops in the different classrooms. Here are some of our students' testimonials: 

Launch Day of our Buzzing Project with special guest; Éanna Ní Lamhna

The 17th of October, was a memorable day at Kiltiernan N.S. We launched our 'Buzzing Project'. Our guest of honour on the day was Éanna Ní Lamhna, an Irish biologist, environmentalist consultant, radio and television presenter, author and educator.

We were also joined by Nollaig McGuinness (representing Galway 2020), Sharon O'Grady (Arts Officer with Galway County Council), Cllr. P.J. Murphy, Veronika Straberger (Community Artist) along with many members of the local community.

Ms. Fenlon and Ms. Leech presented our 'Buzzing Project', where the initial idea stemmed from, the work and involvement of people in the project so far and where the project will be taken in the future months.

Here is a little video of our event: 

Ms. Leech and Ms. Fenlon Buzzing about our Bee Loud Glade Project Launch

Cllr. P.J. Murphy and  guest speaker Éanna Ní Lamhna 

Guests enjoying our Buzzing launch

I am What I eat

I am What I eat:

Together with our artist in residence Veronika, we looked at the history of Still Life paintings and discovered the amazing work of Giuseppe Arcimboldo. He was an Italian Renaissance painter who lived in the 16th century. He painted portraits but when you look closely, you can see that all the faces are composed of fruits or vegetables. Some of his paintings you can turn upside down. They look like a fruit basket one way up and like a face the other way up. Isn't that cool? 

                 

With our teachers, we had learned how bees pollinate lots of the fruits and vegetables we eat. Did you know that without pollinators like bees, we would not have any apples, lemons, bananas, melons, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, cranberries, almonds, cashew, coconut, avocado, beans, vanilla, grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, turnips, beetroot, pumpkin, tea, coffee or most importantly CHOCOLATE?

Grace

Without bees to pollinate food crops, we would lose vital minerals and vitamins in our diet. This gave us lots of food for thought, and inspired us to make our own self-portraits of favourite foods we eat and that are important to us. We cut out images from shopping catalogues to make collages. Here are some of our portraits: 

Alex

             

Mark

             

                  Gabriel

Here are some of our artists at work: 

     

... and a Self Portrait by Orlaith:

Visit from PJ Murphy

On the 3rd of October, we welcomed Cllr. P.J. Murphy, our local county councillor to our school, the first of our invited speakers for our Buzzing Project. 

P.J. owns Ardrahan Apiary honey business. His session was very informative and the children really enjoyed it. They learned about the following:

• The lifecycle of a bee
• The craft of beekeeping
• The equipment and suit used when beekeeping 
• Where to obtain your first colony
• The Honey crop 

We hope to have P.J. return to our school for the launch of our Buzzing Project, when Éanna Ni Lamhna, RTE radio presenter will be our special guest.

P.J. teaching the Senior Room how to help the bees.

                         

 P.J. shows us the bee keeping outfit necessary for bee keeping.
                 

   Martha tries out bee keeping for the afternoon!

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      P.J. brought a honeycomb for us to try freshly made honey,mmmmmm

                 

 

The boys give their seal of approval!

 GEOMETRY IN NATURE:

From our beekeeper Cllr. PJ Murphy, we learned that bees build honeycomb cells inside their hives. They use these cells as nurseries to raise their young brood. The queen lays her eggs inside the cells prepared by the worker bees. They also use the cells to store pollen and honey. 

Rather than making square or round cells, bees are building hexagonal units out of beeswax. Bees have special wax glands in their cheek to make beeswax for building honeycomb. Choosing to build hexagonal cells is very economical and clever because it allows bees to create the largest volume cell with the least amount of building material.

With our artist, Veronika Straberger, we looked at geometry in nature and found many other hexagonal shapes in nature, like the basalt columns of the famous Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, or the shells of turtles. 

We also learned that bee's have compound eyes. They are multi-faceted made up of lots of hexagonal facets. Bees most likely therefore have slightly blurry and multiple vision - almost like looking through a Kaleidoscope. When they look at us they most likely see multiple blurry images of us. So if we wave and flail our arms about it is rather alarming for a bee as it sees lots of arms flailing about. If a bee happens to land on you it is best to remain calm and still. She will in all likelihood buzz of again on her own after she had taken a little rest from her exhausting honey gathering flight. 

Bees also don't see colours the way we do. They can see particularly well the colours: purple, yellow, white and ultra-violet (which humans cannot see). They cannot distinguish red from grey and cannot see red flowers very well unless they have veins of ultra-violet also (like poppies). 

Bees can also see polarized light - which humans cannot see. It allows them to figure out were the sun is, even on a cloudy day. They can therefore tell the time of day and they use the polarised light rays for navigation to find their way back to their hive. 

With our artist, Veronika, we learned how to draw the perfect hexagon using a compass.

Some of us had never used a compass before and it was a bit tricky at first....

But with a bit of practise we learned how to draw the perfect circle and construct a hexagon by marking the distance of the radius 6 times on our circle's circumference. 

Veronika also showed us how to make beautiful Mandala flowers with our compass just by drawing intersecting circles. We coloured them in the colours that bees can see...