U:Bee Online Blog

skill

Bees! Helping Them Before It’s Too Late

by

What did you eat this week? Breakfast-jam on your toast? Lunch an apple after your cheese and tomato sandwich? Dinner – pasta with a tomato sauce? Well, you needed bees to be part of all of this!   When most people think about bees, they just think about the honey they produce but actually they’re behind much of the food we eat, including most fruit and vegetables. Bees are crucial to our economy –the pollinate our crops and  without them it would cost UK farmers £1.8 billion a year to use other methods of crop growing.  A world without our bees would be a very different place.

There are 267 different species of bees in the UK but many species of bees are declining, with two bumblebee species known to be extinct. 

[Read more…] about Bees! Helping Them Before It’s Too Late

Positive Mental Attitude Makes For Better Results – it’s a Fact!

by

What will give you a positive mental attitude? Do you think you could be positive if you believed there is no such thing as failing? Developing study techniques that work really requires you to have some good knowledge about the past techniques that didn’t work for them and how those might be eliminated or changed to be more productive. For instance, if the student has difficulty with time management skills then developing techniques and strategies that manage their time and efforts effectively will only improve the amount of information they are able to retain.

[Read more…] about Positive Mental Attitude Makes For Better Results – it’s a Fact!

Soap Making as a Hobby is a Great New Skill

by

 

Soaps are so taken for granted that we hardly pause to think more about how they are made. The general feeling is that the entire process is far too complicated, industrial, and way out of being made a hobby. In reality, soap making is a simple process, and there are ready-made melt and pour type of kits available that allow us to make soaps with our own chosen colours, fragrances, herbal ingredients, and shapes.

Soap making can be pursued as a hobby and can even be turned into a small home based business. All it takes is an interest in the making of soaps, and some diligence in the whole process.

Soap is a simple mixture of oils and caustic soda (lye.) The resultant liquid when left to solidify forms soap with a lot of glycerine, hence also called glycerine soap. The industrial soap manufacturers remove excess amounts of glycerine and use other ways to make the soap soft and mellow.

The oils used in soap making are common oils like palm oil, coconut oil, olive oil, grape seed oil etc. The caustic soda used should be of industrial quality.

There is some amount of heating involved in soap making, and this therefore requires caution. The exact proportions of mixing oil and lye should also be known beforehand.

A melt and pour soap making kit can introduce a novice into soap making. Simply buy the kit and follow the instructions that come along. Once you are familiar with this process, you may consult other sources and can try making soap oneself.

Everyone of us wants to have a herbal soap, one filled with natural oils and fragrances. Children are delighted with soaps of various shapes such as animal figurines. Pursuing soap making as a hobby can allow you to make soaps as exactly as you want them to look and smell!

U:Bee Online is a licensed AAP (Approved Activity Provider) for The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.  Achieve your Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award or Silver Duke of Edinburgh’s Award by completing the Volunteering, Physical, Expedition and Skills Section of your DofE Programme.    

Looking for DofE skills section activities?  Choose one of the U:Bee Online DofE skills section ideas, to complete your 3 month or 6 month skills section, for your Bronze Award or Silver Award and receive your Certificate and Assessor’s Report. 
Find Skills Section Courses at www.ubee.org.uk

Learn More About Badge and Pin Collecting

by

Pins are a hot collectible that offer an added advantage over other collections – they are small and do not take up much room. Pins are available in many motifs and themes. Some of the most collectible themes are Disney characters, sports teams, and Hard Rock Cafe. The first rule of pin collecting is to specialize. If you like the Manchester United Football Team for instance, you can start pin collecting with souvenir pins that celebrate this team. And just because these themes are popular doesn’t mean you have to collect them. Be original and collect what you like.

Many pins are centred around modern entertainments, but many pin collecting enthusiasts collect campaign pins from election campaigns. Buttons are a similar item and are collected by many of the same people who do pin collecting. Pins created to advertise businesses and services are also very collectible.

To display pins you have several options. When you wear a jacket with lapels, you can wear a few of your favourite small pins. The same goes for wearing a cowboy hat or a vest. Many pin collectors wear a few on the front of a cowboy hat. Tote bags, purses, and fanny packs are another place where some pins can be displayed.

Of course, as you get into pin collecting, you will soon find that you have too many to wear the entire collection at one time. A bulletin board, perhaps covered with a plain piece of fabric, like dark blue velvet, makes a nice backdrop for a pin collection. The pins can either be pinned into the cork of the bulletin board through the velvet or attached to the velvet first.

Another way to display and store pins is in a notebook. This method works well if you wish to take some of your pins to an event where you can do some trading with other pin collectors. To make the notebook, purchase sheets of hard felt or craft foam. Either punch holes in the side so they fit into a loose-leaf binder, or slip the pages into page protectors after attaching the pins to the pages. The type of loose-leaf binder that zips closed is the best to use for pin collecting.

Sometimes pins get scratched, especially if they are stored in a notebook arrangement such that they hit each other. The scratches can be smoothed over with a tiny bit of liquid car wax. Future scratching can be avoided by using page protectors in notebook collections.

Pin collecting is a very popular hobby. You can find groups of like minded people with which to trade pins, making pin collecting a hobby that helps people make friends.

U:Bee Online is a licensed AAP (Approved Activity Provider) for The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.  Achieve your Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award or Silver Duke of Edinburgh’s Award by completing the Volunteering, Physical, Expedition and Skills Section of your DofE Programme.    

Looking for DofE skills section activities?  Choose one of the U:Bee Online DofE skills section ideas, to complete your 3 month or 6 month skills section, for your Bronze Award or Silver Award and receive your Certificate and Assessor’s Report. 
Find Skills Section Courses at www.ubee.org.uk

Staying Inspired and Learning New Skills

by

Are you ready for your inspirational thought for the day? When you first read it, it may seem too simple. However, if you think about it for even a moment, you’ll see that the implications are profound – and inspiring. This is it:

“Whatever goals you have in your life, and no matter where you are start, someone has succeeded at something similar or even more difficult, starting with less than you have.”

There may be some of you out of the six billion on the planet for whom this doesn’t apply. Perhaps some really want to do things that are far beyond anything a man or woman has ever done.

Want a loving partner? Somebody less attractive, charming and intelligent than you is getting happily married somewhere today. Want to create a new food and successfully market it? You probably already have more resources than Harlan Sanders had when he started trying to sell his Kentucky Fried Chicken. Want a big beautiful home? Three or more people in your town have such a home after being poorer than you at some point in their lives.

Is This An Inspirational Thought?

Anthony Hopkin’s character, in the movie “The Edge,” says “What one man can do, another can do.” He goes on to kill the bear that is stalking him. What if you aren’t as strong, as rich, or as smart as others? Not all those who have done great things were always stronger, smarter and richer than you. Just like them, you can learn the right things, take the right actions and put in the effort. This is why this is an inspirational thought. See where some people started from, and you’ll find yourself saying, “Hey! If he can do it, I can too.”

I told a guy he could save money to buy a home, and he claimed he just didn’t have any extra to save. He forget that he already knew several people who were making less money than him and surviving just fine. If he lived like those people for a while, couldn’t he bank the difference? (Just say yes – finding reasons why you can’t do something is a terrible habit to encourage.)

Would you like a date for this Friday? How? Here’s a clue: An awkward young man asked a woman friend why he couldn’t get a date. She asked if he had asked anyone out. After he thought about it for a moment he said, “No.” “That’s why,” she told him. Better example: I know a jerk who always had a date – after asking twenty women a week out. These are lessons, aren’t they? If a geek and a jerk can get a date, you can too, right?

Colonel Sanders drove around in an old van living off his benefits check as 900 restaurants told him they were not interested in his recipe. One eventually said yes, and he eventually made millions of dollars. Maybe this could inspire us to try something more than three times?

U:Bee Online is a licensed AAP (Approved Activity Provider) for The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.  Achieve your Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award or Silver Duke of Edinburgh’s Award by completing the Volunteering, Physical, Expedition and Skills Section of your DofE Programme.    

Looking for DofE skills section activities?  Choose one of the U:Bee Online DofE skills section ideas, to complete your 3 month or 6 month skills section, for your Bronze Award or Silver Award and receive your Certificate and Assessor’s Report. 
Find Skills Section Courses at www.ubee.org.uk