The Great Sunflower Project

Look at the bumble bees that visit your sunflower. They may all be the same species - black in the middle with a yellow stripe near the head and end of the bee with a yellow face. This is the yellow faced bumble bee. It seems to be taking over California and does very well in urban habitats. Another bee, the Western bumble bee has disapeared completely in the last ten years. This other bee appears to have gotten a disease that that was brought in by some bumble bees that had been sent to Europe and returned to the US.

You can also talk about bee stings. The part of the bee used for stinging is actually an ovipositer which is used to deposit eggs. It's only when a bee thinks it is in mortal danger that it will actually sting. Many species of bees don't have stingers that are strong enough to break a human's skins and only female or girl bees actually have a stinger!

Life Sciences standard

Adaptations in physical structure or behavior may improve an organism’s chance for survival. As a basis for understanding this concept:
Students know plants and animals have structures that serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction.
Students know examples of diverse life forms in different environments, such as oceans, deserts, tundra, forests, grasslands, and wetlands.
Students know living things cause changes in the environment in which they live: some of these changes are detrimental to the organism or other organisms, and some are beneficial.
Students know when the environment changes, some plants and animals survive and reproduce; others die or move to new locations.
Students know that some kinds of organisms that once lived on Earth have completely disappeared and that some of those resembled others that are alive today.

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