Cactus-bongert
nature discovery trail
cactus-bongert nature discovery trail
In the Cactus orchard lives Yuppi’s friend Amelie, who is a bee.
Yuppi goes to visit Amelie, but when he arrives at the beehive, there’s
great excitement there, because someone has taken the bees’ honey.
Now join Yuppi and all the bees from the hive as they look for the thief.
Whoever could it have been?
practical information:
Yuppi
The total length of the footpath is about 3 km.
It will take children +/- 1 hour to walk along it, but you should allow 1 hour more
to make sure you can have a good look at everything.
Yuppi will show you the way from one stopping point to the next.
The path is not accessible for pushchairs or wheelchairs.
You walk along the path at your own risk. Neither Cactus s.a.
nor the natur&ëmwelt Foundation Hëllef fir d’Natur can be held
responsible for any accidents that occur on the footpath.
Amélie
Thank you for helping us to protect this area
by keeping to these few simple rules:
I don’t pick
any flowers.
I don’t make
any noise.
I go on foot.
I don’t light
fires.
I keep my dog
on a lead.
I take my
rubbish home
with me.
I stay on the
footpath.
the bee hive
01. the bee hive
INFO
For bees, their sense of smell is
very important. Every beehive has
a special smell, and its inhabitants
smell the same. This means that
the bees can recognise their hive
and its inhabitants. The sense of
smell is also important in finding
flowers.
6.
1.
2.
5.
3.
4.
1. EYES
Insects’ large eyes are made up of lots of separate eyes.
With these compound eyes they can see faster, i.e. more
images per second, than we humans and they also have a far
wider field of vision.
2. ANTENNAE
Bees do not have a nose. They smell and feel with their
antennae. This enables them to orientate themselves in the
dark beehive. They communicate with each other by scents
which each bee produces in special scent glands,
for example when they are alarmed it smells of bananas.
3. PROBOSCIS
Bees do not have a tongue but a proboscis with which they
suck nectar out of flowers. The bees carry the nectar back
to the hive in their honey stomach. In the hive it is either
used as food or thickened into honey – to use as a reserve
in the winter.
4. LEGS
Like all insects, bees have six legs. On their back legs they
have large “baskets” in which they transport pollen to the
beehive.
5. STING
Bees only use their poison sting in an emergency, to defend
themselves or their hive. When a bee stings a person, the
sting and the venom sac get stuck in our stretchy skin and
the bee dies.
6. WINGS
Bees use their wings to fly. And if it is too warm,
they use them like a fan to cool the hive.
did you know?
Did you know that bees dance, too? This is how they tell the other bees
where fodder plants are to be found.
hedges
02. hedges
Look at all the creatures
that hide in this hedge!
beetle
dormouse
nest
partridge
cow
red-backed shrike
did you know?
Hedges are very important for lots of animals and for us humans too.
They offer many different kinds of food and they provide protection from
wind, rain, too much sun and noise. They are a good place to spy out from
and they help animals orientate themselves. Animals walk along hedges
and they creep inside them.
hare
meadows
03. meadows
Here are a few of bees’ favourite flowers, as they see them.
Can you find them in this big meadow?
Bees see meadow flowers in ultraviolet light: blue, and shades of violet
and pink. For bees, meadows and landscapes are just pale grey.
This is how
I see the lowers
in the meadow.
Ox-eye da
Bellflower
isy
er
Buttercup
Cornflow
il
fo
Bird’s-foot Tre
Dandelion
did you know?
In a species-diverse meadow, there may be over 30 different plants –
all kinds of different grasses, but lots of flowers too. All these plants
provide food for lots of insects such as bees and butterflies. And where
there are lots of insects, there are lots of insect predators such as
shrews, hedgehogs and all kinds of birds.
Ragwort
Field scabious
limestone
04. limestone
In the past, limestone was extracted here,
so that the lime could be burnt out of it.
The lime was used like cement, to fire bricks
and make mortar and a kind of plaster.
I'd like it here,
too!
no
Orega
Bee Orchid
rnet
Small Bu
Qua
king
Copper
Gras
s
Nowadays on the dry, warm limestone ground,
mostly those plants grow which can withstand
hot and dry conditions.
fruit
05. fruit
Do you know all the different kinds
of fruit in the orchard?
apple
plum
cherries
pear
did you know?
There used to be lots of different varieties of fruit. The benefit of that was that they
flowered in succession. Then it wasn’t so bad if the blossom of one variety was damaged by the frost. And they ripened in succession so people had fresh fruit over a
longer period. And above all, the fruit varieties had very different characteristics: some
were better for cooking or were good for making schnapps, others were for stewing or
for eating fresh or storing for a long time…
animals
06. animals
1.
>It is a bird
>It has a long tongue
>It has a tough, pointed beak that it uses to make holes in wood
>It is green and red
4.
>It sleeps for almost
7 months of the year
>It has black markings
like a mask
>It likes eating fruit best
>It has a long, furry tail that it wraps round itself to go to sleep
2.
>It is a mammal
>It eats insects
>It has extremely good hearing
>It is nocturnal
>It can fly
5.
>It is related to bees
>It builds its nests out of wood, in hollows
>It is big
>It can sting, but its venom is
no worse than that of wasps
3.
>It is a bird
>It is nocturnal
> It nests in hollows in old trees
>It is only as big as a blackbird
>Its image appears on the Greek 1-euro coin
6.
>It is a mammal
>It does not eat fruit but insects
>It hibernates
> When in danger, it rolls itself up into a ball
>It is prickly
Do you know these animals from the orchard?
Bees are important for orchards, and orchards are
important for a whole lot of animals which find
perfect places to live in and around the old fruit trees.
1. Green woodpecker 2. Bat 3. Little owl 4. Garden dormouse 5. Hornet 6. Hedgehog
willows
07. willows
did you know?
Willow rods are perfect for weaving, because they are very bendy. But
you can only use young shoots for weaving. That’s why willows are cut
back every year or two. Then new rods grow from the trunk.
That creates the typical shape of a pollard willow, with a thick, old and
often hollow trunk, from which lots of thin rods grow like hair on a head.
Can you wea
ve?
Have a go he
re!
the pond
08. the pond
Lots of creatures spend part of their lives in water.
Turn the disc to find out what the monsters turn into!
Larvae
1 Tadpole
2 Dragonfly larva
3 Damselfly larva
4 Caddisfly larva
5 Great diving beetle larva
6 Newt larva
7 Mosquito larva
8 Stonefly larva
Fully grown creatures
1 Frog
2 Dragonfly
3 Damselfly
4 Caddisfly
5 Great diving beetle
6 Newt
7 Mosquito
8 Stonefly
jobs in the orchard
09. jobs in the orchard
The nicest job in the orchard is picking the fruit when it’s ripe.
But before then, there are a whole lot of other jobs to do.
January, February:
Plant new fruit trees
Prune the trees
April, May:
Fertilise young trees with compost
July:
Pick cherries
Prune cherry trees
If it’s dry: water young trees
August, September:
Pick plums, greengages, damsons
October:
Pick apples, pears, walnuts
November, December:
Plant new fruit trees
Prune trees
All year round:
Check young trees (erect fences to keep animals
away, check for voles, diseases, etc.)
trees
10. trees
Fruit trees through the seasons:
Sweet nectar for the bees in spring, tons of sweet
fruit in autumn, and the same again year after year.
Where does the tree get all that sugar from?
IN SPRING...
... as the days get longer, the roots begin to take up water. The sugar reserves from the
previous year are mobilised and the sap is transported to the buds. The buds open,
the tree blossoms and new leaves form.
IN SUMMER...
... production is in full swing. Sugar is formed in the leaves from water, carbon dioxide in
the air and the sun’s energy, and then it is taken to where the tree needs it: beneath the
bark to form new wood cells, or to the fruits, as a store of energy for the seeds.
IN AUTUMN...
... the seed (the fruit) is ripe and falls from the tree. In the leaves, all the substances that
the tree still needs are broken down, then the leaves turn yellow and fall off.
The sugar reserves are stored in the wood, the bark and the roots.
IN WINTER...
... the tree rests. The buds from which new leaves and flowers will grow are well
protected from the cold under a tough casing.
1THE CROWN
2 THE TRUNK
3 THE ROOTS
in autumn
am
hiescht
in winter
am
wanter
did you know?
The process in which sugars are formed is called photosynthesis. In the
same process, the green parts of the plant also produce the oxygen that
we need to live.
in spring
am
fréijoer
in summer
am
summer
Thanks for your visit!
Please deposit the brochure after your visit in the shop from
Haff Ditgesbaach for the next visitors.