Nature Activity - Trick-A-Bee

Trick-A-Bee Flower Pollinator Data tracking.png

The name is misleading because this is more of an experiment than a game to play on bees! The question is, do pollinators visit specific flowers based on color? To conduct this experiment, draw an outline of a simple flower on a piece of paper or a paper plate and color it in using only one solid color. Make flowers in different colors: red, orange, yellow, white, blue, purple, and pink. Set out the flowers in a place where you can see which insects come to visit them. Get comfy, hold as still as you can (pretend you’re a tree), and watch your flowers carefully for an hour. To track which pollinator comes to which color of flower, see our data sheet example in the photos. You can make your own on a piece of paper and crayons, just draw a grid and color in each square to match the colors of your flowers. Make tally marks on the corresponding colored boxes to track which insects visit which flower. For example, say you see a honeybee fly to the purple flower first. You would put one tally mark in the purple box. Use our example if you want to specify which pollinator came for lunch. Report back to us what you discover! Which color flower did Bumblebees visit first? Honeybees? Mosquitos? Tally up and let us know!