Nancy Urbano, left, a senior at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio studying environmental science getting her undergraduate research assistantship at SIU, looks for the queen bee with Gayle Tyree, right, an undergraduate research assistant from the University of Chattanooga, and Mark fletter, center, a 35-year-old beekeeper with Dayempur Farms in Anna. Urbano said she enjoyed volunteering at an activity table making candles out of beeswax with the children. “I think it’s really important to reach out to little kids because they are going to be the ones left with this world,” Urbano said. Fletter said he came to educate the kids about pollinators because it may help reduce fear of bees, which pollinate 70 percent of American food crops and are dying because of conventional pesticides. “They’re an incredible organism. They’re incredibly valuable and we don’t have to be scared of them,” he said. “We can respect them and we can work with them.” Fletter also offered tastes of honey, though he does not sell honey. “When anybody thinks about a honeybee the first thing that wets their mouth is their thought of that liquid gold, so offering them a taste is helpful to see what they can offer to us,” he said.