Project creates a buzz about vital role of bees

CHILDREN at Middleton-in-Teesdale Primary School have been learning how bees are important in helping create almost all the food that people eat.
Year one and two pupils played the part of bees, the sun, water, air, soil and seeds as they learned about pollination through a programme presented by the North Pennines AONB’s Nectarworks scheme.
Mandy Oliver, of Nectarworks, played a game of bouncing the bumble bee off the flower with the pupils before explaining how bees enable flowers to produce seeds by pollinating them.
She said: “The bee has flown about the flowers and as she moves the pollen from flower to flower she allows the flowers to make seeds.”
Several children correctly guessed that the process was called pollination.
Children who correctly answered what seeds need to germinate got to play the parts of King Soil, King Air, Princess Water and Queen Sun while the rest of the class played the part of growing seeds.
Another pupil played the part of a bumble bee that pollinates all the children after they had grown into plants and flowered.
The aim of Nectarworks is to enthuse, educate and enable communities to take action for bumblebees and other pollinators by restoring and increasing flower-rich habitats across the North Pennines AONB.