Activity: Keeping bees healthy

How to help a bee

If you see a sick bee, ask an adult to move it to a quiet place to recover. You can give sick bees sugar water (1:1 sugar and water) to give them some energy. Sugar water is not good for healthy bees though!

Bee parasites

Just like people, bees can get sick. Small creatures called parasites can live in the gut of bees. The parasites stop bees from being able to tell which flowers have nectar and which don’t. This leads to the bees going hungry, and eventually the bees can starve to death.

Luckily, the nectar from some flowers stops bees from getting parasites. This acts like a medicine for the bees. However, the nectar cannot take away parasites the bee already has.

So, which plants are good medicines for bees? You can find out, by testing how long your (paper) bee survives in two ‘gardens’ which have different plants in them.

You will need: