Kids Learning About Bees

By Violet Bourns

Tyler was the host city for the Texas Beekeepers Association Annual Convention on November 12-15, 2009 at the Holiday Inn Select on South Broadway. Our special guests were the Texas Honey Queen, Nicole Pettibon from McKinney, American Honey Queen, Diane Jurchen from Iowa and other Queens and Princess from all over Texas. They included Collin County Honey Queen, Allison Adams from Plano and Honey Princess, Kaylynn Mansker from Nevada; Williamson County Honey Queen, Rebekah Jones from Spicewood, and ETBA Honey Queen, Kellie Lenamond from Wills Point.
Thursday the 12th focused on Kids Learning about Bees; renamed by Jimmie Oakley and in the future, will be called “KLAB.” Our goal was to reach 500 school-age children in the East Texas area who were home-schooled, in private schools and 4-H clubs who could attend on a weekday. We had a grand total of 440 children, excluding accompanying adults and children in strollers.
Thanks to the hard work and commitment of Tammy Lenamond, mother of ETBA Honey Queen, Kellie Lenamond, and her committee, consisting of Judy Giles, Brenda Claire and Darlene Rappazzo, many of the small communities were reached, which helped make it a success. These ladies also worked the registration table.
As the teachers and children arrived, they were greeted outside the hotel by Brandon and Susan Pollard of Collin County Beekeepers dressed as honey bees with yellow and black balloons, and had time to meet and have their picture taken with Buzzy Bear played by members of the Seida, Kilpatrick and Mansker families. Once inside, they were escorted to the registration table by Patsy McCall, Gloria Harmon, Karen Anderson and Joe Mekalip. From there, each group was escorted to the different tables by a Honey Queen or Princess. The teenage beekeepers of ETBA, with an experienced ETBA adult at the table, volunteered to teach the children different aspects of beekeeping.

The first display was an observation hive that contained four frames of bees with a marked queen displayed by ETBA student, Mike Rappazzo. Mike had made an observation hive with a swivel base and safety glass with the help of his instructor, Dick Counts. This allowed the children to safely see the bees at work as Mike explained the three kinds of bees and their role in the hive. Mike Lenamond worked with him.
Next the children were educated about the importance of the honey bee as the most valuable pollinator of the world’s food supply by ETBA student, Hayden Wolf and her father, Gus Hayden had many pictures of bees collecting pollen and nectar from flowers. She explained the different parts of the flower and the difference between pollen and nectar; and also how the bees store pollen in their pollen baskets and nectar in their stomachs. They then fly back to the hive, deposit the pollen into the cells to feed the young larvae and the queen and transfer the nectar to the other worker bees, so they can make honey.
The third table demonstrated the beekeepers protective clothing such as the suit, veil, gloves and boots worn by Joshua and Joseph Bradley, while working with their bees; and when they experienced first-hand bee removal from a building with instructor, Dick Counts. The Bradley boys brought a honey and deep super, top & bottom, inner & top cover with frames & foundation to show the children how bees live and are taken care of in boxes called hives. Joe Moench worked with them.
Around the room to the extracting table where a child could see first-hand how pure natural honey was cut off the comb with a hot knife, frames put in a stainless container that spun around to remove the honey; which was strained, then bottled by ETBA student, Travis Freeze and adult, John McCall. Each child received a brochure about making honey and the teacher was given a honey stick for each child.
Next the children got to see a collection of old skeps that are no longer used from different areas of the world brought by Mr. Jan Aerts. ETBA student, Roland Crossman did many hours of research to learn about the skeps so he could participate with Mr. Aerts in explaining how they were made and used in the past.

The next table, Bee Swarms and Stings from bees are always an area of interest. ETBA President, Andrew Bellefeuille and his twins, Katie (who shares her father’s enthusiasm) and Will who was just happy to hand out neon pencils to everyone. Kerrie Lenamond, who had helped her father, Mike collect swarms helped educate about swarms, remedies that can be used if a person gets stung by a bee, and how to remove the stinger.

The last table and perhaps the most popular for the children was the candle making table where the children got the experience of hands on rolling a beeswax candle to take home. Linda Pelham and Gayle Mekalip worked with students Erin Lenamond, Abby Giles and others who volunteered to help when it got crowded.
On the way out the children visited with ETBA Honey Queen, Kellie Lenamond, who displayed her scrapbook and a bee quilt she had made that was later auctioned off for $500.00 to support the Texas Honey Queen Program. The most popular question was “Are you a real queen?” She assured them she was; not only as a title, but that she also worked her bees like all beekeepers and extracted her own honey to use in cooking for her family.
On the way back to their schools, students, parents and teachers stopped to purchase small glass bee trinkets made by the Lenamond children and sold by student, Becka Lenamond and Susan Holloway. Also available was ETBA’s cookbook “Cooking With My Honey”; a fund raiser to support our Queen and Princess sold by Stan and Mary Jo Brantley and our 102 year old beekeeper, Mr. John Knight and wife, Shirley.

Submitted by Violet Bourns
East Texas Beekeepers Association
Honey Queen-Princess Chairperson