Honeybees do a lot more than make honey! For thousands of years, honeybees have been important for honey, yes, but mostly for the incredible job they do of pollinating flowers and crops. Without the honeybees, there would be no more flowers. . . no more crops. . . no more blossoms of any kind.

When you put that glowing golden honey on your toast, look at it closely and consider that a honeybee had to visit hundreds of thousands of blossoms to get that tablespoon of honey you’re going to eat. Think about the ingredients in your bread. Think about the milk you’re drinking; without honeybees, there would be nothing for the cow to eat, and then there would be no milk, no hamburgers, no ice cream, and no cheese.

Without honeybees, there would soon be very little for people to eat. Think about that! Think very hard, because the collapse of honeybee colonies is a phenomenon that has recently been occurring all over the world at an alarmingly increasing rate, and nobody knows why.

What can you do about this? For starters, you can plant some of the flowers that honeybees love; this might attract the honeybees to your yard! Honeybees love sunflowers, violets, jasmine, lavender, coreopsis, trumpet flowers, cosmos, coneflowers, and thyme. All of these flowers smell wonderful! When the honeybees come to feast on the pollen, leave them alone. Don’t chase them, or step on them. Just watch them do their job, buzzing from flower to flower, and listen to them hum as they work!

If you go to the Haagen-Dazs website, you can learn more about the honeybees.

What do honeybees actually do all day? We have exclusive, hidden video showing their secret activity. Okay… I’m lying. It’s just a video of a guy with bees, but it’s pretty darn interesting.

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Here’s the video of the latest record. I didn’t realize that the guys at Eepybird were involved. Hats off to Stephan and Fritz - nice job! Is there any other video floating around?

Teachers have been doing this experiment for several years, but with the advent of YouTube and the advantages of the internet, more and more kids are learning about it, and experiencing the sheer fun of science in their back yards and classrooms alike. But what do students actually learn from this experiment?

They learn that the scientific laws and theories in their textbooks came about because somebody made a mess in his/her back yard or classroom. They learn that science is not dry (sometimes it’s really WET!) but actually fascinating. They learn about actions and reactions. They learn that there is beauty in a scientific experiment. They learn that they have the power to prove or disprove a theory. They learn that science is all about exploring and wondering, and sometimes it’s really sticky or messy. They learn that when everyone drops the mint into the diet coke at precisely the same moment and in the exact same way, the results of the experiment are more fair. (Using the Geyser Tube helps with that problem!) They also learn that good science appeals to people of all ages.

The entire experiment is outlined right HERE.

Oh, and one more thing: Not only will the students learn all the above things, they will also learn WHY. And they will remember.

We always remember things that made us happy, and made us laugh, and made us really, really dirty.

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