Making a bee watering station is another really cool (and speedy) after school activity to get kids outdoors and exploring nature.
Bees are having a hard time at the moment, and this is very bad news as bees pollinate the food we eat. We need bees to survive. but 1 in 10 species of bee faces extinction, and over the past 50 years over half of all species has declined. Climate change, biodiversity loss, fragmentation of land and the use of pesticides are all contributing to the problem.
So how amazing is it that we can contribute DIRECTLY to change this decline in species. This really resonated with me, and I hope it did with my kids too (the older one anyway). Sometimes I feel so powerless to change anything. All the big problems seem so vast that I don’t know where to begin or how to act, but just making some simple changes in your back garden or patio can be the start of some huge changes.
There are various ways of making a bee watering station but we used a shallow dish, some stones from around the garden of different shapes and sizes, and some water. You could also use marbles. The key is for the water in the container to be shallow, so that bees, and other insects, will not drown in it. The water will need refreshing every so often to keep it clean, fresh and free from mosquitoes.
Many sites tell you to add sugar but it appears to be a myth. It seems to have come from a fake tweet from Sir David Attenborough, which has now been deleted. Bees do not need to be given any added sugar. It’s not a natural food source for them. They need nectar and pollen, so the best thing to do if you want to really help bees thrive is to plant lots of flowers that are bee friendly. You can also make a bee hotel with kids. Hopefully we will have a go at making a bee hotel on our 30 Days Wild challenge too.
My son loved this activity. Rummaging around the garden for stones, arranging them in the dish and watering the dish. The station sits outside a window and he keeps asking me where all the bees and butterflies are. I’m telling him that the rainy weather is probably more than enough water for the bees and the butterflies for now but they might like the water station if it gets really hot later in summer.
B arranging his stones and pebbles in the dish
