Animal keeping

Yesterday we learnt about bees...
and pigs

and goats
and sheep
and ducks
and chooks
We took a tour of the animal pens at school and here's what i learnt.
Roosters are funny! They scratch around, then 'call the girls' to come eat. A good rooster, apparently, doesn't eat first, but makes sure all the girls are fed first. He's a big fella the rooster at school.. and with about 20 hens to look after, i have to say i felt a lot of respect for him with his selfless service to the hens! In another enclosure, there are a bunch of 'redundant' roosters. They live with a turkey, too. The redundant roosters are on the queue for the chop at some point. They become redundant when they aren't a 'good' rooster. i.e. they eat the food first before the hens, or they are vicious, or they attack humans.

Polly and Pudge are the resident piggies at school. They have a fairly small enclosure for their size, but occasionally get taken out for a walk. Robyn brings out treats (usually bread) to get them to behave in an orderly fashion, and takes them to the orchard at times, and the pig tractor where they can all get into the leftover roots, grasses and buried goodies that humans don't find. The pigs at school are a miniature cross breed, but they're huge still. They eat heaps of greens. Heaps. Their poo and their enclosure doesn't smell.. perhaps cos of all the greens?

Bees are quite remarkable critters!
Robyn's dad kept bees most of his life, and even got a reputation with the council as a person to call if a bee swarm was reported somewhere!
I've seen a bee swarm once when i was an Northey Street.. it was a HUGE number of bees.. and apparently what happens is that they'll swarm when their hive has loads of honey and enough bees to divide and form a new hive. So the bees take off, loaded up with honey for their trip, en masse. They then stop somewhere in a huge teeming ball of bees while scouts head out looking for a suitable place to call home. If you happen to see a bee swarm ball, and you're into bees, you could even manage to collect them to create your own hive. If you have a box to scoop them in.. providing you get the queen bee in the box, the others will all follow!
So many interesting facts about bees:
When a queen is ready to mate, she'll fly out of the hive and fly straight up into the air. The drones (males) will all follow her but only the one who flies the highest the fastest will mate with her.
Over 900 food crops rely on bees for their pollinating.
Native bees don't make much honey. Honey bees are the honey making bees with high production of honey.
1kg of honey is made from collecting pollen from FOUR MILLION flowers. Yes, 4 000 000.
At first light the bee scouts fly out to find forage. They come back and tell others and a group goes with them. They communicate locations referring to the position of the sun.. so on cloudy days it's harder for bees.
They are monofeeders, meaning they only feed from one plant type at a time, so they can pollinate. So one group may do pumpkins, another group may do zucchini etc.
Queen bees are the only ones who lay eggs.
They fly up to 3km radius from their hive.
Supers can be full in 2 wks with a productive hive.
Bees need to be handled on Still, sunny days. You can check them for how they're going with their honey, how their queen and babies are going and check for pests.
When checking bees, make sure you have no strong smells, and no perfume or B.O. so you don't upset them. Also wear light colours and a protective veil. Never shorts, never sleeves they can get trapped up. Tuck pants in socks. Only check them if you're feeling peaceful. Sudden noise or sudden movements alarm them.