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Description

As well as providing delicious honey, bees also play a huge roll in in fertilising food crops that we eat by moving pollen around flowers. Planting bee friendly flowers attracts bees to areas to your garden to help fertilise your garden and gives them food. Take these seed bombs home and plant them. Add some water, watch them grow and see if you can spot the bees coming to visit!

This technique uses sugar/construction paper so it can be run in your unit without the need for gloves and masks that are required for health and safety when working with soil.

These make great gifts to give out to the community and can be easily made pretty with some cellophane and a ribbon!

Resources

Girls will need
• 1x 25x25cm cheese cloth
• 1x Rubber Band
• Small pinch of bee friendly seed mix (15g of seed provide enough seed for 60 seed balls)
• Paper pulp
• 1x Cup

Instructions

(To make paper pulp cut 1xA3 sheet of sugar/construction paper into small pieces (10c piece size) and cover with water. Allow to soak for at least 1 hour. Place in a blender in small batches and pulse until a paper mulch is achieved. (Sugar/Construction paper has a rough grain and makes great pulp for this activity.)

Take a square of cut cheese cloth and secure over a cup with a rubber band.

Take 1tbsp of pulp and pour into cheesecloth. Sprinkle one small pinch of seeds into pulp mix. Put another 1tbsp pulp mix on top of seeds.

Carefully undo the cheese cloth from the rubber band and gently squeeze over a sink to remove any excess moisture.
Shape using your hands into a ball shape.
Remove cheesecloth and roll gently into ball shape if needed.
*The rubber bands are reusable so return to the bag any ‘good’ ones. Also, the cheesecloth can be used more than once, .

Place completed seed ball on to a tray or in an open container
.
Repeat the process to make a second seed ball.

Allow seed balls to dry. Seed balls can be planted and watered regularly to grow.

Tags

• bees
• conservation
• Elements Camp 2019
• Gift
• seeds

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