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Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Thomas County, KS

Why I love bees

A honeybee queen marked with a yellow dot on her back, surrounded by worker bees on the honeycomb. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Bees" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.
A honeybee queen marked with a yellow dot on her back, surrounded by worker bees on the honeycomb. Marisa Lubeck, USGS · Public domain
  • They dance to tell each other where to go.
  • Without them a lot of our food stops.
  • The whole hive acts like one animal.

You can love bees in Thomas County.

What it really is

Bees pollinate plants and communicate the location of food by dancing.

Three things to try today

  1. Watch a bee for two minutes without touching it.
  2. Count how many flowers it visits.
  3. Find out what a waggle dance means.
A USGS researcher pinches the top of a white net bag to trap a bumble bee caught during a pollinator survey in North Dakota grassland. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Bees" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.
A USGS researcher pinches the top of a white net bag to trap a bumble bee caught during a pollinator survey in North Dakota grassland. Mike Simanonok, USGS · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

This page is written to the child, not about them. If a kid in Thomas County, KS loves bees, here is the grown-up version of what they already feel. Thomas County is one of 105 counties in Kansas.

The waggle dance encodes distance and direction. It is symbolic communication in an insect.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Thomas County, KS →

Love something else too

A cultivated agricultural field stretching to the horizon with a wetland strip along its edge. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Farming" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love farmsAn alligator moving through a brackish waterway at Kennedy Space Center, only its eyes and back above the water. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Animals" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love animalsRed leaf lettuce, mizuna mustard and green lettuce growing under pink-white LED lights in the Veggie plant growth hardware. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Plants" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love plantsA pair of American bald eagles perched on the rim of their large stick nest on Kennedy Space Center property. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Birds" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love birdsA blacktip reef shark swims just under the sunlit surface, above a head of coral, at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific Ocean. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Sharks" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love sharksAstronaut Mike Fincke reaches into the sealed Life Science Glovebox to run a biology experiment aboard the space station's Kibo module. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Biology" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love living thingsA test model of the long magnetometer boom for the Europa Clipper spacecraft laid out for checkout at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Magnets" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love magnetsTechnicians in clean-room gear install guidance, navigation and control electronics boxes into the Juno spacecraft. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Electronics" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love electronics

Near Thomas County

Why I love bees, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in Thomas County