Bee amazed at the Melbourne Museum

Sunday, 10 June 2007 16:30

Melbourne, AU - Melbourne Museum is a hive of activity as it prepares to launch its latest display, Honeybees, opened on 6 June 2007. Featuring over 10,000 live bees, Honeybees allows visitors to join the buzz of the hive and see, hear and smell the busy world of the bees.

Did you know bees existed 50 million years before Tyrannosaurus first appeared? Or that each honeybee worker will produce about one teaspoon of honey in its lifetime? These questions will bee answered in this new permanent display, which also features a very rare 30 million year old bee preserved in Baltic amber.

The highlight of the display is a working beehive, where visitors can see the bees making honey. The bees travel from inside Melbourne Museum, through clear tubing, to the neighbouring Carlton Gardens where a specially created garden has been developed for the bees to use.

“Bees are so important - we depend upon them and other pollinators for much of what we eat and enjoy. Without bees, we would have trouble producing enough food to feed Australia’s population. In fact, one in every three mouthfuls of food we eat is a direct result of the ‘ecoservice’ we call pollination,” explained Luke Simpkin, Acting Manager, Melbourne Museum.

“We’re very excited about Honeybees, in fact you could say we’re buzzing like bees! Children will love learning how to do the ‘bee dance’, which is a performance that worker bees do to tell the other bees where food is and in what direction and distance,” he added.

Honeybees at Science and Life Gallery, Melbourne Museum - Nicholson Street, Carlton. Open 10.00am to 5.00pm daily. $6 Adults, FREE children and concession. For further information, visit www.museumvictoria.com.au