FAIRHOPE – Bees are not to be feared and need to be protected as a vital part of the environment, economy and much of the food we eat, Nicole Nyaad tells her audience.
As the Eastern Shore beekeeper gives an enthusiastic description of her favorite subject to a cafeteria filled with developing larvae. An owner of “Four Honeys Farm,” Nyaad, often known at “the Bee Lady,” said teaching people about bees is as much a part of her work as tending to her winged charges.
“We’re a small beekeeping operation,” she said. “One of my main focuses is on education, teaching people like these how important bees are to the environment.”
In the spring, bees will often swarm, looking for new hive sites. Nyaad tells the children that they should avoid the swarms that might gather on house eaves or even a bicycle, but that their parents should call a beekeeper to remove the insects rather than trying to spray them.
“A lot of people will try to kill them, but if they call the Baldwin County Beekeepers Association, they will have someone come out and take care of them,” she said.
Nyaad is assisted by her daughter Finley, a fifth grader at Fairhope Intermediate.
Growing up around bees has taught Finley to respect the insects and their importance.
“It’s great. I used to be scared of them, but not now,” she said. “Not usually.”
Bees are important for the production of much of the food that the children eat, Nyaad said. Many fruits and vegetables are pollinated by bees and need the insects’ help to survive. It’s not just vegetables either.
“How many of you like chocolate?” she asked the students. “Cocoa beans need bees to pollinate. If we didn’t have bees, we wouldn’t have chocolate.”
Nyaad brings a handful of students forward to show how honey is produced. She describes how one bee gathers nectar from a flower into its stomach. Using plastic straws and a line of students, she shows how bees will pass the nectar through their proboscis to other bees, each time bringing it up from their stomachs to another bee, a process that brings a few groans and exclamations from the young audience.
Finally, after the nectar has been processed through several bee stomachs, it’s ready to become honey.
Nyaad said she also tries to tie the talks into students’ science lessons.
“The honeybee is in the order, and I just like this word, Hymenoptera, can you say that word?” she asks students. A chorus of young voices respond, “Hymenoptera.”
Asked how long queen bees live, the students respond with answers from 35 years to a few days. The correct answer is two to five years, unless the queen fails to lay eggs and then the hive will remove her immediately.
Worker bees on the other hand, live only about six weeks.
Nyaad tells the children that workers have different duties during their short life cycle, with some tending the hive and then later going out to find nectar. Bees who find a food source will tell other hive members how to find the nectar by circling and wiggling their tails, a demonstration has many of the laughing kids copying the moves and wiggles.
Teacher Trina Jackson said the talk is more than a lesson in science.
“It’s a great way to show that by cooperating, they can accomplish a whole lot,” she said.
