Pollinators Protection Campaign
Pollinators such as bees and butterflies are vital to maintaining our environment. On average every 3rd mouthfull of food we consume is thanks to the work of pollinators.
Meet Bobbin Bee
Bobbin Bee, much like the name, enjoys bobbing around and is often found with Bobbi Bear, who loves honey and friendship very much.
Bobbin wears bear ears and a fluffy tail over the stinger as Bobbin loves to spend time with Bobbi Bear, dressing up for fun and imaginative play.
Bobbin Bee products will soon be added to the ‘Bearsprings Store’, where sales will help to fund donations towards pollinator protection charities and initiatives. Check back soon!
Bees within the Bearsprings curriculum
Children at Bearsprings learn much about bees through songs, our favouites being the ‘Billy no Buzz’ musical about a bee that cannot fly and through books such as ‘Bee my Friend’ by Caroline Richards.
These teach children about why pollinators are important while showing them how to be kind and tolerant towards all living things, especially their peers.
Pollinators fact file for children
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The term pollinator refers to all creatures that move pollen from the male to the female parts of a flower. This helps to bring about fertilisation which creates new plants and flowers.
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The main pollinators within England are bees (there are many varieties of them).
Butterflies, moths and beetles are also large groups of pollinators within England.
According to the government there are a total of at least 1,500 species of insect pollinators within England!
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More than 80% of the flowering plants on planet Earth need the help of a pollinator to produce more plants; this process is called fertilisation.
Their work is very important as one out of every three bites of our food comes from flowering plants.
These foods include our favourite vegetables and many more! Fruits and treats like chocolate, nuts, the spices that your parents use to cook your favourite meals and their favourite coffee beans are all able to grow thanks to pollinators.
Imagine all of those foods dissapearing; our diets would lose a lot of nutrition and it would be very dificult to make alternative foods for people with allergies to some cooking ingredients!
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Plant flowers!
Pollinators love wildflowers in particular but you can plant any kind of flowering plant (including vegetables) which you can enjoy eating as a family after they are ready.
Remember not to use any kinds of chemicals or pesticides as these affect the pollinators too!
You can leave potted plants on concrete surfaces around your home or childcare setting, like gardens or driveways.
By doing this you can help to create B-lines. These are an ‘insect pathway’ in towns and cities and are an excellent initiative created by buglife.org.uk. They give you the opportunity to take part in B-line projects that already exist, while allowing you to create your own and mark it on their map.
You can also leave out a butterfly house (these are usually made of wood and have slots that look like a toast rack) for them to take shelter. Bee hotels are also an excellent idea for your garden spaces (same idea but these have circular holes for bees).
If you spot some pollinators taking shelter in your bug houses, why not leave some nectar or flowers near them too? They do work very hard after all.
We usually leave out some nectar at Bearsprings after releasing our painted lady butterflies as they like to return and take shelter in the wooden beams of our covered play area in the garden.
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Meet Delilah
At Bearsprings we regularly buy caterpillars from Insect Lore and release them when they transform into butterflies. These caterpillars become painted lady butterflies through a process called ‘metamorphosis’.
Delilah was part of a batch of 10 caterpillars, all of which sucessfully metamorphosed into butterfiles. However, as she was unable to fly and take care of herself in the garden, she was brought back inside. Delilah’s behaviour is much more like a house pet, such as a cat or dog, than you may believe.
You can click the button bellow her picture to follow her journey over on the Bearsprings blog!
Facts about painted ladies for children
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Vanessa cardui
Four-footed butterflies or Brush-footed butterflies (these are also known as Nymphalidae).
There are over 6,000 different species of Nymphalidae, of which the painted lady is one; it is the largest family of butterflies.
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Painted ladies are the most widespread of all butterfly species across the world. They are found on the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and throughout America.
Despite this they do not hibernate and cannot survive in cold temperatures, so they migrate once it gets too cold for them.
They can fly thousands of miles to reach warmer climates!
Painted ladies prefer open, sunny spaces such as parks and fields, although they can be spotted in many different habitats.
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Painted ladies are a variety of Nymphalidae.
Scientists have found that many species of Nymphalidae not only have hearing that overlaps with the hearing range of humans, at between 500 Hz and 6 kHz, but they do also have physical ears!
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They use their antennae (the two little stick-like parts at the top of their heads).
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With their feet.
Painted lady butterflies have four feet.
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No.
They have a long tube-like tongue that is black and is called a proboscis. They can roll it up when they are not drinking nectar.
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Painted ladies can lay on average up to 500 eggs each (that is a lot of eggs considering their lifespan in the wild).
These eggs are a light green colour when they are laid (they can almost look blue) but they become a grey colour just before hatching (which usually lasts for just over a week).
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On average from 15 – 29 days.
(This estimate is from egg to death, In the wild).
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Although it looks like powder on your fingers and surfaces, it is actually scales.
Every time you touch their wings some of their scales come off, so remember not to touch because they can’t re-grow them!
Image courtesy of Insect Lore
Painted lady butterfly lifecycle
Silkmoth
Image courtesy of Insect Lore
Facts about moths for children
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Yes they do, although their ears are not the same as human ears.
They have ultrasound-sensitive tympanal ears. This means that they have specialised ears that can hear bats communicating in the dark and are less likely to get eaten by them, thanks to this.
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Moths also have scales on their bodies, legs and wings; this is because they are part of the same insect group as butterflies (the lepidoptera, that means 'scaly-winged').
They also share the same lifecycle.
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Generally yes, but there are exceptions. Although they are nocturnal, they are also attracted to light e.g. lamps.
(Nocturnal means that they are active during the night and rest during the day).
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Moths can slow their brains in order to focus their energy on improving their vision in dark places.
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Honestly, this is very difficult to answer.
Moths have dull colouring.
Wing shapes are different (moths rest with their wings open and flat, while butterflies rest with their wings closed and upright).
Moth antennae are thicker and have no 'club', unlike butterflies.
These are three commonly believed differences between moths and butterflies, however, there are exceptions to all of them!
Some clear differences Bearsprings was able to find when researching differences between moths and butterflies are:
Moths have something called frenulums and butterflies do not.
Humans also have frenulums (take a look inside your mouth. You will find two:
The thin, pink, squidgy line that connects your top lip to the gums of your top jaw.
The thin, pink, squidgy line that looks like it connects your tongue to the inside of your lower jaw (once you lift up your tongue, you will see it). This example is sometimes also called the 'tongue web.'
The frenulum in a moth's body is used as a connector between its forewings and hind wings. This means that they can move both sets of wings together when they fly.
Moth caterpillars and buttefly catterpillars make different types of protective casings for themselves while they are getting ready to complete their metamorphosis.
Cocoons: specific to moths are covered in an outer layer of silk.
Chrysalis: specific to butterflies; this is a smooth and hard casing, without any silk like covering on the outside.
Some cocoons can be transparent. The monarch butterfly's chrysalis will also become transparent soon before it is ready to hatch, so you can watch a part of the metamorphosis process taking place inside.
Moths and butterflies have different forms of hearing. Many breeds of butterfly are supposedly unable to hear anything (apart from nymphalidae), while moths have specialised hearing to protect them from bats. Simillarly, their vision also differs as butterflies are active during daylight hours and most moths are nocturnal.
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Moths have 4 wings in total (same as a butterfly):
2 forewings (larger)
2 hindwings (smaller)
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Yes! Bees are commonly known as super pollinators, with a reputation for the highest pollination levels among known pollinators. However, moths have been found to be the most efficient pollinators.
This means that moths have been found to pollinate faster than bees, even though moths are largely nocturnal and spend less time pollinating.
This discovery was made by Professor Fiona Mathews, Professor of Environmental Biology at the University of Sussex.
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Plant white flowers- this colour is known to attract some specific types of moths to your garden.
Grow patches of wild grass e.g. scrub/ rough grass as moth caterpillars like to eat this.
Turn off night lights e.g motion sensor lights.
This spectacular video shows slow motion footage of 7 different types of moths. Can you spot the scales falling off their wings, as they fly?
Video courtesy of Dr Adrian Smith at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.
Dr Smith’s YouTube channel Ant Lab creates videos in the Evolutionary Biology & Behavior Research Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences & North Carolina State University.