News!

Summary by Zachary Zollman

Images by Zachary Zollman and Ms. Hiveley

     The Roosevelt Bee Group is happy to announce that we are currently working with Walt on our owl box that will bee hung up in Florida Canyon. We also started work on an exciting new musical project. Look forward to hearing about that soon! We are also amazed that, coincidentally, Edible San Diego, Slow Food Urban San San Diego, and Sempra Energy sponsored a magazine for kids about bees that was passed out to all students at RMS. We would like to thank them for what they do. We are looking forward to our final Florida Canyon Adventure this Thursday and our first ever Native Plant Sale this Wednesday. Hope to see you there!

"Ian Bush" Manzanita will be sold at our Native Plant Sale this Wednesday

Florida Canyon Adventure 3/20/14

Summary by Molly Demer

Photographs by Zachary Zollman

The RMS Garden Club joined the RMS Bee Group  in our second to last 2014 Florida Canyon Adventure. 18 people (5 advisors and 13 students) walked over to our bee garden, which was previously cleared for planting. We then we sorted our seventy native plants by species and learned how much space each type of plant needed. We planted:

Cleveland Sage

California Buckwheat

San Diego Sunflower

Lemonade Berry

Yarrow

Bladderpod

Blue-eyed Grass

After planting, we watered the plants, and made rock rings around the plants so that they wouldn’t be trampled. As usual, we picked up trash as we went. We moved around some logs and created an extra space for our pollinator garden. This was a spectacular event. Thank you, volunteers!

We planted a lot of Blue-eyed grass!

Roosevelt Middle School IB Festival

Summary by Zachary Zollman

     Today was the annual Roosevelt Middle School I.B. (International Baccalaureate) Fest! Bee Group had a table, and we collected donations, gave away California Poppy Seeds, showed people one of our videos about Florida Canyon, and talked to them about bees. It was really great to get to inform people about the plight of the bees. We gave away about fifteen CA Poppy seed packets with informational cards about the Bee Group. These CA poppies will benefit all sorts of native pollinators, including bees. Overall, this was a really great event!

Thank you to our volunteers:

Jade Bushnell

Kai Delman

Hailee Heidick

Noah Herdman

Lillian Shallow

Zachary Zollman

This is a trifold that we made about Bee Group.  The trifold features screenshots of our videos, explanations of the importance of bees, a few paragraphs about what we do.

At our table, we had a computer with a video from a Florida Canyon Adventure, a box filled with CA Poppies, a donation box, field trip forms for our Florida Canyon Adventures, and a tri fold. 

Florida Canyon Adventure 2-20-14

Summary by Kai Delman

Photographs by Hailee Heidick

     On the 20^th of February, The Bee Group and Garden Club made another successful journey to Florida canyon. Our group consisted of 18 students and 4 advisors. We first learned about bones from an archeologist from UCSD. We looked at bones that we found on a previous adventure. The archeologist taught us that all mammal bones are similar, and that bones finish growing their ends at adulthood. We studied the bones, hypothesizing that the bones were from cattle. We reached this conclusion because the bone seemed to have been cut by a man made tool, which suggested that it was going to be eaten. These practices were common about a hundred years ago, so this bone was probably a hundred years old. After this great experience, we continued on to community service. We trimmed down eucalyptus trees that were engulfing native plants like California Buckwheat. After trimming many invasive plants, we moved farther down into the canyon and focused on cutting down St. John’s Wort, an invasive plant that is not native to San Diego. This was a really fun, successful event! Thank you, volunteers!

Florida Canyon Adventure 1/23/14

Summary by Lillian Shallow
Photographs by Zachary Zollman

Our third Bee Group Florida Canyon Adventure was a huge success! Garden Club joined us for this spectacular event. After we convened with Ranger Weber in the designated location, we all grabbed gloves and threw seed bombs, which we had made a month prior. We also planted California Poppy seeds. That done, Ranger Weber provided excellent entertainment as well as a much needed sprinkler check. When the sprinkler was sufficiently checked and the students sufficiently wet, Ranger Weber instructed the 22 students and 2 teachers on the art of moving logs to serve as benches. After this manual labor, we removed the invasive plant St. John's Wort, which originates in Southern Africa and has yellow flower buds when in bloom. We removed so much of this invasive plant! Overall, this was a very successful Florida Canyon Adventure, which will hopefully light the pathway to many future successful trips.

These are some of the seed bombs that we used to spread native plants in Florida Canyon.

This is one end of our restoration site in Florida Canyon. Soon it will bee a pollinator garden!

As you can see, Florida Canyon is directly across the street from Roosevelt Middle School (the building in the background). The kiosk will be repainted and the interior redesigned by the RMS Bee Group.

This is St. John's Wort, the invasive plant that we removed.

Seed Bomb Florida Canyon Adventure 12-19-13

Finished Seed Bombs

On December 19^th, 2013, the Roosevelt Bee Group met up with the Roosevelt Garden Club and Ranger Carina Weber. We made seed bombs, which are a small bundle of compost, clay, seeds, and water. Our seed bombs were thrown into Florida Canyon on January 20^th. The flower seeds that we put in the seed bombs include: White Sage (Salvia apiana), Blue Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium bellum), Palmer’s Sage Wort (Artemisia palmeris), California Buckwheat (Erigonum fasciculatum), Wart Stem Ceanothus (Ceanothus verrucosus), Deerweed (Lotus scoparius), and Broom Baccharis (Bacharris sarothroides). All of these are native plants that grow in San Diego. This was a really fun event! Hers’s the “recipe” that we used to make our seed bombs.

Seed Bomb “Recipe”

Ingredients

5 parts dry clay, preferably powder

3 parts fine compost

1 part seeds, preferably of native plants

Just enough water to hold it together

1 Part Native Plant Seeds

5 Parts Clay

3 Parts Fine Compost

First, you put the clay on your work surface. Next, you add the compost, and then the seeds. It’s great to spread native plants, so bee sure to use seeds of native plants whenever possible! Always be sure that you are not putting seeds from invasive plants in your seed bombs. You can face fines for spreading invasive plants, especially on public lands. Next, you add a tiny tiny tiny amount of water. If this is not enough, add a tiny tiny tiny bit more. Repeat previous step until your seed bombs form a sort of dough. It is important to not let your seed bombs fall apart, but if you add too much water, your seeds could sprout prematurely or rot. Let the seed bombs dry for a few days, and then find an empty space and throw your seed bombs! Save the bees!

Thank you, volunteers!

The First Florida Canyon Adventure

Summary By Zachary Zollman

On November 21st, 2013, we walked across the street to Florida Canyon for the very first time. Green trees decorated the hillside as three members of bee group picked up trash. We were accompanied by Ms. Sarah Hiveley, our amazing advisor, and Ranger Carina Weber, who would be helping us for the next few months, and hopefully, years. We received a brief history of Florida Canyon, and found out that Florida Canyon is home to an endangered cactus. We found a suitcase, museum passes, and all sorts of other trash. We are looking forward to continuing our restoration events!

Zoo Field Trip 11/14/13

Summary by Lillian Shallow

Photographs by Zachary Zollman

     The Roosevelt Bee Group recently accompanied Ms. Sarah Barnard on a trip to the world renowned San Diego Zoo. It was a wonderful and very educational trip. Unfortunately, the zoo's observational bee colony has mysteriously died, and we suspect that it has suffered a terrible case of CCD (colony collapse disorder), so there weren't any bees on exhibit. However, we did have the opportunity to observe some wild bee hives that the San Diego Zoo has allowed to inhabit their property. We were only able to find two; one in "The Lost Forest", and the other near the primate exhibits on the "Monkey Trail." We do know that there are others, but we do not know how many because the zoo does not do any type of research on these bees, but graciously allows them to live at the zoo.

     As for the currently empty observational hive, the Bee Group brainstormed ideas and theories about why the colony died, and how to improve the hive. We also learned many fun facts about bees, such as the fact that the zoo generally has hives of Cordoba bees, which are European and therefore they are not as resilient to disease. This may have led to the downfall of the hive at the San Diego Zoo.

     In conclusion, our trip to the zoo was very informational, and provided our group with a new outlook on observation hives in general. In the end, we were left with this question; What makes observation hives work, and why or why not?

This enclosure used to house a bee hive. We got a chance to see it in the San Diego Zoo's Insect House.

This is first of the two wild bee hives that we found living at the San Diego Zoo.

This is the second of the two wild bee hives that we found living at the San Diego Zoo.

This is a panel about the role of insects in ecology. It pointed out that insects can pollinate our plants, eat our garden pests, and decompose our waste.