There are many steps gardeners can take to improve the habitat for bees. Here's how to attract them to your garden.

These 6 tips to winterizing bee hives will give your bees the boost they need to get through the winter months to spring and blooming flowers!

When you look into your hives in the spring, do you see a huge population of bees? If so, you should think about splitting bee hives in Spring to prevent swarming.

I clearly remember our beginning days of keeping a honey bee hive. Gathering tips from other bee keepers was most helpful

Check out how to build an 8 frame Langstroth Bee Hive cheaper than they can be purchased. This series follows a journey into beekeeping with a woodworker, and my DIY process to building be hives.

Using Bee Bot in the classroom is an easy way to teach important 21st century coding skills while also working on other key skills.

Have you ever wondered about layering vinyl decals? Layer right onto the transfer tape to make things way easier when you go to place your decal. Here is a step-by-step tutorial of how to layer your vinyl.

For those of you who couldn’t join us on Facebook this week (@spanglerscience), we’ve been working hard to provide fun and amazing at home experiences to those who have been impacted by the current events.

Critical decisions when setting up your bee yard.

My quilt blocks from my Bee Tweet virtual quilting bee - so far. I am making one more row so it will be 4x4 blocks and 70x70 inches square. I sent everyone strips of my favorite fabrics and pieces from my scrap bin and asked them to make 5 sided wonky log cabin blocks based off Aneela's tutorial here: comfortstitching.typepad.co.uk/comfortstitching/2011/04/c...

Introduction This brief post will show that St. Ambrose of Milan did not believe in salvation “by faith alone” as professed by the Reformers, condemned by the Council of Trent, and generally held by most Protestants today. There are two reasons I am focusing on St. Ambrose: 1. He is one of the few Church

Hello Friends, How is your holiday weekend going? I hope you are seeing some warm weather and sunny skies. I have been as busy as a bee helping a friend

Why buy honey bees if you can get them for free? Find out how to catch a swarm of honey bees safely, in two different ways.

There is an absolute wealth of talented artists and craftspeople based in my home county of Yorkshire and Mr Finch, who creates fairytale-like fabric taxidermy is one of those. Most of you have probably come across his incredible textile sculptures before, but for any of you unlucky enough to have missed it until now, here is a little sneaky peek at this man's fascinating creations. In the words of Mr Finch 'Velvet curtains from an old hotel, a threadbare wedding dress and a vintage apron become birds and beasts' he loves to hunt for objects to include in his work. He plays with scale in a lot of his work too. Moths and bumble bees would usually be things that would fill me with abject horror, especially giant ones, as someone who is pretty terrified of moths and insects in general but Mr Finch's work is so beautiful, I find myself drawn to it, like a moth to a bright light. A lot of his inspiration comes from nature and British folklore. Mr Finch says 'Humanizing animals with shoes and clothes is something I've always done and I imagine them to come alive at night. Getting dressed and helping an elderly shoemaker or the tired housewife.' If you get the chance, do go and look at his facebook page too, full of images of his work and links to odd stories he has found, like a video of the last glass eye maker in Britain.

Isn’t it funny how little ones are just curious about everything and totally don’t have that grossed out reaction that we have as adults? I have to admit bugs creep me out, so I was totally not excited for this week’s theme. I tried my best to contain my feelings about insects so Madelynn could […]

This easy DIY idea on How to build a Carpenter Bee Trap to get rid of those destructive creatures. This trap really does work.

This post has been a lllooooonnng time in the making, but I finally put a tutorial together to walk you through the Basics of Screen Printing with vinyl. I'm admittedly no pro, but I've tried

Need a part in hurry or a custom-sized part you can't get elsewhere? Try 3D printing and casting it yourself.

Is it better to buy a nuc or a package of bees? Buying a nuc vs package bees is something to consider, especially if you live in a colder climate like we do. Here in

Harvest Moon style cows!

Bee-Bot-coding-fun is such a great way to introduce coding to your elementary students. Find out what a Bee Bot is and how to use...

Help students learn the scientific process by teaching it in conjunction with science experiments. Learn more about how to teach this

I’ve been hearing some buzz lately… …about these handy-dandy soil block thingies that people are using to start their seeds. I’ve been pretty loyal to my nifty little newspaper pots for a while now, but being the nosy curious homesteader that I am, I just had to check out these new pots on the block. […]

"Hey, Mistew Dicken." "Yes?" "Can I dwive that wobot?!" The smallest and youngest little boy (usually unengaged, and without a single care in the world) in my kindergarten class was beyond excited. I had just introduced my kids to Dash & Dot, Wonder Workshop's pair of blue and orange robots, designed to help teach young kids the concepts of coding. I showed them a YouTube video to announce that we would be getting a pair of the robots for our classroom. Clearly, the video had created a buzz of excitement, as very few (if any) of my students had seen a robot before, in the flesh...er...metal? Gears? Whatever. I had read about these robots while looking through Twitter, and then Googled them and read some more. New to the education scene, the robots were getting good reviews among educators who were incorporating coding into their classrooms. I knew that I could not fund the project, and I knew that the school could not fund the project, so I decided to try out DonorsChoose.org. It was Saturday, and I filled out the required information on the website, wrote the essay, answered some questions, and selected the items that I wanted. By Sunday night, they had posted my project, titled, Dash & Dot Are the Secret to Kindergarten Coding. By Monday afternoon my project was fully funded (thanks to two generous donors). That evening I answered a few questions to confirm the materials list, and the following day the items were ordered and shipped from the seller (Amazon.com). It was then that I showed the kids the video, and mentioned that they would arrive in a couple of weeks. They arrived on Thursday (two days later). Dash (L) & Dot (R) with control panel. We unpacked the boxes together (about an hour before the end of the day), and we set up the robots and drove Dash around (they are controlled by apps on an iPad). Their excitement was uncontainable. If you know anything about kindergarteners and uncontainable excitement, then you can imagine what the end of my day was like. Here are some things that kindergarteners do when they are so excited that they can't contain it anymore: run in circles, yell (for no reason), wrestle each other (mainly the boys), jump up and down, and laugh maniacally. It was like watching an episode of Oprah where she's passing out her favorite things. I knew that I had to direct their energy, and came up with a plan to introduce the robots' controls on Friday. I simply printed our weekly sight words on hearts (it was our Valentine's Day Party Day, after all) and put them on the floor in different locations. The directions were simple: start in one spot, drive Dash to the sight word that I tell you (they had to recognize/read the word on the heart), make him do a trick, and then drive him back to the starting point. Each student in the small group would get a turn. Easy. It was a smashing success. Everyone got a chance to drive the robot, and practice their sight words. Every child left this station beaming and chatting excitedly to their friends. Now, for more (and more challenging) ideas... So easy, a child can do it...literally. Notes from Dash & Dot: Day 1 - Each student got a total of, maybe, two minutes with the robot. Within that two minutes, nearly all of them were able to drive the robot (with a purpose) quite smoothly. That's how user-friendly the controls are. - My friend from the beginning of this post was easily the most engaged he has been all year. In fact, they probably all were. - The app that we used to control Dash is Level 1 of 3. As you go up a level, the controls get closer and closer to actual coding. - I noticed that one of my girls, who never answers questions (she has speech issues and struggles with her confidence because of it), was very excited and very confident while using the robot. Not only could she read the sight word that she was given, but she drove the robot effortlessly, giggling the whole time (see the video). If using these robots is a way to give a voice to a child in my room...wow. - During our little game, I found that some of the kids who didn't know the sight words before must have been acting. With the iPad in their hands, controlling Dash, they were able to find the sight words, no problem. It was not coincidence, or an accident. They found the word immediately, and then drove him to it. What an amazing experience! DonorsChoose was on top of every aspect of this project, and contacted me throughout the entire process with updates. They made it quick, easy and painless. I will definitely be working with them in the future, and would suggest that any teachers who need funding for a project (or who have a dream project for their classroom) work with them as well. Also, Wonder Workshop, the company that created Dash & Dot, has reached out to me, and informed me that they email teachers curriculum and ideas for the robots, as well as updates. What a great addition to an already great product! I love it when a product that I love comes with amazing customer service. Anybody looking for an engaging way to bring coding into the classroom should check these robots out. Great product...and we've only scratched the surface.