St. Ignatius Visits the Honey Bee Research Center

This Wednesday we had our second Garden2Table visit of the semester. Mr. Koledin’s class from grade 7 visited the Honey Bee Research Centre and had a chance to learn all about bee’s and honey.

The class arrived at the Honey Bee Research Centre at 10:30, and after a round of introductions they came inside to learn more about honeybees and the science behind how honey is made.

      

 

Paul Kelly, Research and Apiary Manager, Presenter Extraordinaire (and birthday boy!) taught the student’s about bee-hives, drones, trophallaxis and how bees find hives and make honey. Paul even did a demonstration of the “waggle dance” which forager bees do to share information with the rest of the colony about where the closest patch of flowers with pollen is.

Afterwards, the students headed outside so they could see the honeybees in action. The students made a quick stop to see the home of the  “honey monster” (you’ll have to visit the research centre to find out more).

First, Paul showed the students a smoker, which is a device used to calm down the bees who are protecting the hive. Then we walked over to the beehives where Paul used the smoker so he could pull out some of the hives so the students could see the bees close up.

The students were a little bit nervous around the bees at first, but by the end they were reaching in and sampling honey straight out of the hives themselves! They tasted how sweet and tasty the honey was straight from the hive Paul even picked a drone bee out and showed the students up close.

After a big thank you to Paul, we hopped back on the bus and made our way to the University where we used the honey to make a honey Dijon salad dressing with the students. They had a great time sampling the different dressings and learning about how to involve honey in cooking. The students had lots of great ideas on how we to cook with honey!

After we cleaned up, we talked with the students about the day, and then it was time to say goodbye! A big thank you goes out to Mr.Koledin at St.Ignatius, his wonderful students, and Paul at the research centre for making the day so fun!

Our next visit will be this coming Tuesday with St. Ignatius again!

We hope everyone has a wonderful long Thanksgiving weekend!

- The Garden2Table 2015 team

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