Explanation Writing

This is an example blog post for Tui Whanau.

W.A.L.T write an explanation piece of writing.

This term for Writing we have been focusing on Explanation Writing. Below is my 'How do bees make honey?' explanation writing.

How do bees make honey?
Honey is a popular, but very expensive commodity in New Zealand and across the world. Taking it off the shelf and putting it in your trolley is easy, but have you ever thought about how hard bees work to produce our honey for us? Did you know that bees have to visit two million flowers in order to produce only one pound of honey?
Bees prefer to collect nectar from flowers in Spring, when they are in bloom. They use their proboscis (straw like tongue) to suck as much nectar out of the flowers as they can. Bees have two stomachs; a food stomach and a honey stomach. Their honey stomach is where they store all of their nectar. Once a bee has collected enough nectar, they return to their hive.
Once at the hive, the enzymes and proteins in a bees honey stomach mix with the stored netcar and turn it into honey. Then the workers bees pass the honey through different worker bee mouths as this makes the honey sticky. Once the honey is sticky, they store the honey in the honeycomb.
Next bees flap their wings as fast as they can to dry the wet, sticky honey out. Once it is dry enough, the honeycomb is seal with a wax lid to protect the honey and keep it fresh.
Finally the bees work is done and it is time for the beekeepers to collect their honey from the hive. Humans then go through many more processes to prepare the honey for sale, so it can fill our supermarket shelves.

I am very proud of all the detail I have included in my writing. I spent a lot time researching and planning so that my ideas are complex and elaborated on. Something I would like to work on time is adding visual images to my writing to support my ideas and make it more eye catching for the reader.


Did you learn a lot about bees and how they make money? Have you written an explanation piece of writing before?