The National Beekeeping Centre Wales is a free attraction in the countryside that teaches children about the importance of honeybees – with the chance to try lots of local honeys.
This friendly visitor centre is a supporter of Welsh honeybees, which are increasingly under threat from climate change and loss of wildflower meadows (草地). It raises visitors' awareness of environmental issues and shows the 4,000-year history of beekeeping and honey-making, from the ancient Egyptians to the Romans. A Hive (蜂巢) Aid scheme lets you adopt a beehive(from £50 per person), and regular courses (from £60 per person) train new generations of beekeepers.
Fun fact
Bees pollinate (授粉) about a third of everything we eat and play an important role in sustaining (维持) our ecosystems. In economic terms, honeybee pollination could be worth up to £200m to the UK alone.
What about lunch?
Next door is the Furnace Tearoom, part of the Bodnant Welsh Food Centre, which serves light bites – wraps (卷饼), fruit salads (£7) and coffee. And the nearby Pavilion Restaurant at the National Trust's Bodnant Garden has cooked food, including baked potatoes (£5) and daily specials such as local casseroles (焙盘) with bread rolls (£6), plus coffee and cakes.
Exit through the gift shop
There is a range of bee-themed gifts in our gift shop, including bee toys (£2), wooden honey candy (£2) and a selection of honeys all made by Welsh producers (£5). The bestselling Bodnant honey (£8) goes fast.
Getting here
We are located just off the A470 on the Bodnant Estate in the Conwy Valley, and 10 minutes from the A55 north Wales coast road. Follow the brown signs just after Bodnant Gardens.
Value for money
Visits and activities for kids are free, though donations are welcome. Taster days (from £60) and the weekend beekeeping course (£80 per person) are held at Abergwyngregyn village, 10 miles west down the A55.
Opening hours
The Visitor Centre opens daily from 10 am-4 pm but it is volunteer-run, so phone ahead to check. Expect lots of fun activities around the annual Conwy Honey Fair.
When I was 12 years old, I already knew that my teen years were going to be the worst years of my life. I was a total outsider, bullied (欺凌) at school. I felt completely alone in my small town.
But by starting to do volunteer work when I was 14, I turned my problem into a passion for helping others. The opportunity to practice kindness made me feel like my life had a greater purpose. The more positive energy I shared, the more kindness and appreciation I received. I realized that my purpose in life would be to reach out to people, specifically teenagers, and help them feel less alone.
Books were my true friends back then. I was so thankful that the authors wrote those books. The kindness they offered me with their books saved my life. One of my biggest dreams was to become an author so I could write books that would help other teenagers the way those books helped me.
After surviving terrible experiences at school and at home, I made a choice to take the optimistic, positive road in the next steps of my journey. My dream career, one I thought was only possible for the authors I loved, is what I am doing now. I have been a full-time author of teen novels since 2007 and am grateful for this amazing opportunity to reach out to readers every single day.
Kindness saved me when I needed help the most. Even small acts of kindness can change someone's life. You never know what someone else is going through. But by practicing daily kindness, you become an architect of positive change.
This may be sad to hear, but the number of Britain's famous red telephone boxes has been falling for decades. The phone box is well-known to foreign fans of Britain and visitors to the country. There are still many left to enjoy, however.
There is deep feeling for the bright red boxes with the Queen's coat of arms (盾形徽章). The places that still have the red box are mostly small and in the countryside. In these places, the phone box may be a symbol of community, as well as a landmark (地标).
But there are still several cities, including London, that still have original red phone boxes in place.
For tourists, they probably make the perfect place for a selfie (自拍照). Visit London any day in the summer and you'll see people with their smartphones taking photos with the red box behind them. People who receive the photo will have no trouble guessing where the selfie was taken.
Ever since mobile phones became more widespread, there has been less and less point in public phones. But although the red boxes are no longer popular places to make a call from, new uses are being found for them all the time. The famous design created by Giles Gilbert Scott back in 1924 lives on, but in ways the British architect (建筑师) would never have imagined.
Some of the new ways the phone boxes are being used are quite unusual. For example, some have been changed into tiny coffee shops. Others are hat stores. In one distant area of the country, a red box that had not been used for a long time has been turned into a small lending library.
Even back in their heyday in the last century, phone boxes were put to other uses. Some people even used them as toilets in an emergency.
But for many, they were a safe place to hide if you were caught up in the rain. Britain's weather is unpredictable: sun one moment, heavy rain the next. So if you are planning to visit the UK and want the perfect British selfie, standing inside a red telephone box in a rainstorm may be your best bet.
The World Health Organization recently said that it planned to add gaming disorder (游戏成瘾) to its new list of disease classifications, angering the gaming industry but pleasing doctors who hope it may make treatment more easily available.
Some US experts said it would make little difference when it comes to helping people with the disorder, although others said it would bring attention to a disorder that people sometimes don't recognize. So some experts disagree WHO's plan.
Many of us enjoy video games, but does playing our favorite game for a couple of hours every night mean we're suffering from gaming disorder? Not according to the WHO.
The symptoms listed by the WHO include a lack of control over gaming, treating gaming more seriously than other life interests and daily activities, and continuing to play games despite the negative consequences that playing them might have.
"The behavior pattern is enough to result in significant damage to one's personal, family, or social life." the WHO said.
Meanwhile, Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University has carried out influential research into the cause of gaming addiction in young people." I and many others had assumed that gaming is not really a problem but is a symptom of other problems," he told NBC News. Many had thought it was simply a failure of self-control. To see if it was, Gentile's team studied a group of children who had been gaming for several years." We found that when kids became addicted, their anxiety increased … and their grades decreased," Gentile said. When kids were able to back off from gaming, their symptoms disappeared, he added.
Gentile thinks medical organizations should pay attention to the WHO's proposal." This isn't an issue of opinion; it's an issue of science," he said." This is a major scientific and medical organization. They don't do things lightly and without reason."
Dr Petros Levounis, chair of psychiatry at the New Jersey Medical School at Rutgers University, said that he hoped the WHO's proposal would lead to more research into obsessive (过度的) behavior among all types of people.
"Now, there is renewed interest and excitement," he said. So some experts are in favour of WHO's plan.
Volunteering is a great way to support an organization and make a difference in your community. It can also be an opportunity to meet new people and learn new skills. And what should we plan for? Here's a guide for beginners.
Step 1:
Do you want to help the world, or your community? Do you want to build your own skills, make new friends, and learn? Do you love what you do? Do you want to share your gifts with others or give something back? Think about these kinds of questions. That can help you to choose the right direction for your volunteer work.
Step 2: Choose an organization that is meaningful to you.
If you feel strongly about literacy (读写), for instance, volunteer at your local library or find out if there is an organization of volunteer tutors in your area. There are organizations doing all sorts of work.
Step 3: Start small.
If you already have a busy school life, volunteer your time for an hour or two a week, or perhaps one day a month. Then, if you find you enjoy the work and have more time to do it, take on more time by time.
Step 4: Get training.
If there is a training course, attend it. If not, talk to the group leaders and other volunteers about their experiences.
Step 5: Try not to give up.
Volunteer work sometimes involves unpleasant tasks, difficult fellow workers, busy days, or bad management. If you find your work difficult, however, try to work through it before you decide to quit.
A. Do you love to work with people?
B. But how do we go about volunteering?
C. Get to know others in the organization.
D. It is important that you choose something that you like.
E. Think about why you want to volunteer.
F. You'll pick up some good tips to make your work there more productive.
G. You might be surprised by how much you can do in even a little bit of time.
"Do I really want to go through with this?" Have you ever asked yourself that 1 ? Sometimes in life, there are moments when you 2 if you will be able to handle the responsibilities ahead of you. For me, these 3 come daily, whether it's taking a test or working. But one Saturday afternoon, my family and I were 4 around when my dad pulled into a small mall. Little did I realize, we were going to a 5 store where a new member would be 6 to our family.
As my 7 parked our car, I figured we would just take a 8 look and then leave. After a while, my dad called us over. He was standing next to my mom, looking at several 9 . I began to think, "Are we 10 a cat"? My dad asked, "So guys, you like any of these?" My brother said "Yes!" before I could even open my 11 .
When I pictured feeding the cat, cleaning it and giving it water, all of these responsibilities felt 12 to me. Would I be able to handle it? 13 , I would have to live a more adult-like 14 if I got a cat. Later on, after 15 that we should get a cat, I thought about this new phase of my life. I realized that the 16 I make can affect my future.
Looking back, I find that I have been able to 17 the responsibility of owning a cat. Some tasks may be 18 , but that doesn't 19 they can't be accomplished. You simply20 to do your best in order to push past them.
We walked inside a museum in Garden City and looked around, eager (meet) Kobie Boykins, a NASA engineer. He helped to design the Mars rover (探测器) Curiosity, is still exploring to this day.
In a big presentation room, Boykins (talk) about the team's newest rover, Mars 2020. We asked him if the new rover would be most complicated one he and his team (make) so far. He told us that most of the engineering would be the same. However, the rover is still more (advance) and will be able to get more accurate test (result).
When Boykins finished his presentation, some people brought him into another room where we would interview him. We asked if he felt he was a lot of pressure at work. He told us that he (actual) put a lot of pressure on himself. He said that working on the spacecraft wasn't putting him in that position, but he still wanted to make perfect.
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出修改后的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1．每处错误仅限1词；
2．只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分
Are robots going to take away our job? It's hard to say for the rest of the world, and for hotel workers in Japan, it looks very possible.
Weird Hotel run almost entirely by robots. At the reception desk, an English-speaking robotic dinosaur helps guests check in, and another robot carried the luggage to the room. Facial recognition technology replaces with keys to open doors. And sensors (感应器) must feel your body heat and change the temperature in the room.
Using robots has led to lower labor costs for the hotel, and the idea has been so successfully since the first robot hotel opened in 2015 that the company is now planning to open other 100 across the country.
"Having robots in charge of the reception and place robots everywhere, we aim to make it the more efficient hotel in the world," said Hideo Sawada, the hotel manager, according to Business Insider.
