The background
In April 2017 Heritage & Culture Warwickshire worked with The Play House and pupils from Westgate Primary to create tales inspired by objects on display at the Market Hall Museum. Four classes from Westgate Primary came to the museum to work with Julie and Juliet. They used their imagination and created eight new fairy tales and legends, inspired by different objects in the museum.
Mission Beepossible by Year 4
The children were inspired by the live observation hive in the Market Hall museum. They take the bees on a mission to find the best pollen for the queen Bee.
The museum bees
There has been an observation hive at the Market Hall museum for over 80 years. Visitors have been able to watch the worker bees going out to gather pollen to make honey and see the dance they do when they return, telling the other bees where the best pollen is. The queen bee in the museum hive is marked with a white dot on her back to make it easier for visitors to spot her. This can still be a challenge though.
Heritage & Culture Warwickshire would like to thank the children from Westgate Primary who created these stories.
The ‘We’re all Stories in the End’ project was made possible by funding from Arts Council England and with the support of the West Midlands Museum Development Team.
Transcript:
Mission Beepossible by Year 4
[Bees buzzing, birdsong]
STEVIE: Hello, I’m Stevie. Chief Bee, and it’s my job to make sure all our worker bees get the best pollen for our queen. Can you see them working? They are really good workers. Let me tell you of a day when they really made me very proud.
One day, our queen called me into her chamber.
QUEEN BEE: I need you to find me the best pollen before the sun sets.
So, I gathered all of our workers and told them of our mission.
STEVIE: So where should we go?
FIRST BEE: Where are the flowers most beautiful?
SECOND BEE: I know: what about Hill Close Gardens?
We set off down the pipe, through the streets of Warwick and didn’t stop until we arrived at Hill Close Gardens. But things were not quite as they seemed.
FIRST BEE: Something’s wrong.
SECOND BEE: There’s loads of flowers but they all look sad.
The bees hovered their bottoms over the flowers and nuzzled inside but… no pollen. They tried again and again, buzzing from flower to flower but there was no pollen anywhere.
ALL BEES: I blame the crickets
ALL BEES:I blame the wasps
ALL BEES: It’s the dinosaurs.
But of course, it wasn’t any of those things. And Zara Bee knew why.
ZARA: It’s the humans! I saw them. They took the pollen back to the big house in the village.
Now we had a mission: to get that pollen!
[Owl hoots]
We waited until the sun had set and to make sure we wouldn’t be seen we painted our golden stripes black and we flew to the big house in the village. I squeezed in through the letterbox and the checked the coast was clear before the others followed.
We buzzed around the house, up the stairs to a room at the top, inside of which was a huge chest filled with pollen. In we went, bottom first, collecting all we could. But we were disturbed. Footsteps on the stairs, getting louder, getting closer!
BEES: Oh no! There’s no way out! We’re trapped!
But then Bradster Bee spotted an opening:
BRADSTER BEE: A crack in the wall! I see moonlight. Quick follow me.
Back at the hive we presented our queen with the pollen.
QUEEN: Where have you been?
STEVIE: Hill Close Gardens, your Majesty.
QUEEN: Not only are you late, you are also lying. I know that there is no pollen left at Hill Close Gardens for the humans have taken it.
After a right royal telling-off, I managed to explain exactly what had happened and we were all forgiven, but on one condition.
QUEEN: You must go back to the big house, get the rest of the pollen and return it to the flowers and make them smile.
And so, we did. When we arrived back at Hill Close Gardens the flowers were so happy that they danced and sang in the sunlight and they told us that we would always be welcome to take pollen for our queen.
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