Flowers are crafty and attract bee's using bright colours, sweet smells, nectar and pollen. The bee's collect the nectar and pollen and then as they visit another flower of the same species some of the pollen grains clinging to the bee brushes off onto the female reproductive part of the flower called the 'stigma' work completed for the flower!
As a 'reward' from the flower the bee's take the nectar and pollen ("thanks flowers!") back to the hive.
The bee's then turn the nectar into honey, and stack into honeycomb cells which is then used for providing energy for adult bees to perform their tasks.
The Pollen is used for food for Larvae and Young Bees. Nurse Bees use pollen to produce Royal Jelly for the Queen! - Fascinating.......more later!
This is a 'non-profit' project and has been around since 2004 when I first got interested in sunflower growing, then a sunflower competition at work and then this moved into a few of us (Robyn & Tara!) catching honey bee swarms and keeping bees in a 'natural beekeeping' way, learning more and helped the bees by teaching people about bees through BeeRewarded.
Now, 20 years later being retired and wanting to live to 100! learning about what is important for slightly older people is Health & Fun!.....I have been eating a tea spoon of natural honey every day and recently my grand-daughter was given a sunflower to grow from the baby care group, then I came across an old envelope of a donation of keys to our 'Keys For Bees' project which was so nice of Daniella to have done so (but cost of stamps now to much to send keys! ) It reminded me it is my time to give back some time and effort to repaying the bees (and helping the community which my brother needs to start doing!) for the natural honey that I now take everyday and a fun way to keep young!
This part of the website Bee Stacking will be developed and morphed over this year, but for now March 2025 setting up The Sunflower 'OPEN' 2025 is the goal - So please check back occasionally on the Bee Stacking section to learn more about bees, keeping healthy, having fun challenges and any updates on 'has my grumpy brother done anything to help the community!'
This picture was downloaded from V's dreams :-)......Well done for last years sunflower, why didn't we do a 2024 competition! .... never mind V is entering this year's comp!