Bees and flowers ready are made for each other.

Bees’ furry bodies are perfect for picking up sticky bits of pollen.  When bees fly to other flowers they take this pollen with them and some gets shaken off.  When this pollen lands in a new flower it causes pollination.  You can find out more about pollination here.

Bees can have UV vision which is handy because many flowers have UV patterns on their petals to attract bees. Humans can’t see these patterns.  You can find out more about bee vision here.

Sometimes nectar is found right at the bottom of the flower which would be tricky for bees to reach if they didn’t have a long tongue (proboscis).  Some pollinators like bats have extremely long tongues.  You can find out more about this here.

Everyone knows that flowers can smell sweet – but it’s not for our benefit.  It’s for the bees and other pollinators.  Bees are attracted to the sweet smell – it’s like a flower shouting ‘Sweet stuff available here!’  Some flowers smell rotten to attract flies to pollinate them!

If you’ve enjoyed learning about bees maybe you’d like to enter our Bee Aware Month 2021 Kids’ Art Competition.  There’s an entry form here.