Bees and Motorbikes: Stinging and Stinking

I have two questions today:

Bees: why do they sting when we are not attacking them? 

We have looked up some information about this on the Internet and discovered a few things.

They DO think we are attacking them! Even though we are not, they THINK we are. That's why they sting, to defend themselves and especially their hive. Apparently it is not that common for them to sting when they are far away from their hive, only if you wave at them or step on them.

Another thing we discovered is that they die when they sting, because the stinger gets caught in the skin of the person or animal they sting and when they try to fly away, the stinger does not come loose and part of their tummy gets torn. That's why they die. Queen bees are luckier though, because they don't have the same type of stinger. Theirs goes in AND comes out easily.


Motorbikes: why do some of them stink so much and make so much noise? 


My parents explained that the stink was to do with the fuel, and with the motorbike not being in very good shape normally. Fuel is generally smelly. Motorbikes now have mechanisms to control fumes, but my mother says that when she was growing up, ALL motorbikes stank and made noise. I suppose I am lucky then. The noise is also normally related to how new or how old the motorbike is. The newer, the more silent. Old models of motorbikes were noisier. Apparently some people who ride motorbikes actually LIKE the sound and they cut off part of the pipe at the back to make it even noiser! The pipe is called an exhaust pipe and actually helps reduce the noise.

I don't like the smell or the noise.

That's all for today! I hope you've enjoyed my questions.

Two questions about paper and bricks from Izzy and Cathal, in Sandy Cove (Ireland).

Yesterday I received two questions from Izzy and Cathal O'Regan from Sandy Cove (Ireland). My mother and I have looked on the Internet and found some very good videos that explain their questions.

How is paper made?




How are bricks made?
For this question, we discovered there are lots of different types of bricks. But we chose two interesting videos.

The first shows a brick factory in the US and the second shows three boys in Ghana hand-making cement bricks in a little machine.

Here is the factory in the US:

And here is are the boys in Ghana:


Ghana is a country in Africa. I'll show you on a map:

This is a map of Africa. I live in Spain, which you can just see peeping in at the top of the map, to the left. My grandfather (Pa) lived in Ghana when he was little, with his parents, Oma and Opa. I'll have to ask him some questions about Ghana when I see him this summer.

Thank you Izzy! Thank you Cathal! I like getting questions from friends too! Did you find any other good videos to explain your questions? Maybe you can share the links in a comment on the blog.

Bye for now,
Iain