Botanically curious kids busy with bee kits

THE team behind Ballarat BotaniKIDS are encouraging inquisitive little learners to engage with the wildlife in their backyards, being a friend to bees.

Free Bee Kind Bee Friendly Kits have been bundled these school holidays, to get children thinking about science and the environment at home, while they can’t attend BotaniKIDS education sessions at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens’ Gatekeepers Cottage.

BotaniKIDS convenor, Julie Bradby said the bags are funded by sales from the Friends of the Ballarat Botanical Gardens’ nursery, and include easy and accessible activities children can approach at any learning level, whether they’re three or a 12-year-old.

“The packs are all about being friendly to bees, with bee-friendly seeds to plant. There’s a little flowerpot and some soil where they just add water and it expands,” she said.

“There’s a little yellow stone in there that they can create a little bee paperweight with, Beechworth Honey have donated sachets of honey, and we’ve got a little packet of sweets as a treat.

“There’s an activity book with imaginative things they can do. Specifically creating a bee hotel is one I’d love them to do, where they can make a big one in the garden, or a little one in a flower pot, allowing the bees to have a place to hide in the winter.”

Mrs Bradby said it’s important for kids to understand the valuable role bees have in the natural spaces they live and play in.

“The bee population is drastically dropping off. They pollinate 70 per cent of our plants, and if we didn’t have bees, we wouldn’t have food,” she said.

“A lot of gardens don’t have bee-attracting flowers in their gardens, they have closed plants where the bees can’t get into the actual flower. That’s why we’ve put seeds in the kits, and a list of plants for bees in the activity book.”

Some kits were left over from last week’s distribution days. If you’re interested in one for a child in your life, send BotaniKIDS a message via their Facebook page, facebook.com/ballaratbotaniKIDS.

Expecting the COVID climate to be the “new normal for a while,” BotaniKIDS will create more of this style of take-home kits in the future.

“We’re thinking we’ll do a series… ponds and puddles, frogs, and worms. There are already other botanical gardens’ education groups asking for them, so it might become something we can help other gardens with,” Mrs Bradby said.