What would you like to see?

[Bcrazy]

Members,
I am involved in microscopy and photography of honey bee anatomy (exterior and interior) so having said that I have built up a collection of photos.

On another Forum I have been testing samples of honey for members to try to ascertain what pollen grains are in their honey.

So if you would like me to test for pollen grains in your honey then e-mail me and I'll give you my address.

If you would like to see honey bee anatomy then give me a couple of days to find what part you would like to see and I'll post them in Photography section.

Alternatively I have photo's of pollen grains which in my opinion are good as each pollen from individual plants are different.

So get the thinking caps on and let me know.
Its all part of the service.

Regards; Bcrazy

 

[Finman]

.
How big collection you have of species' pollen

 

[Widdershins]

BCrazy, thats really very kind of you!

 

[Bcrazy]

Hi Finman,

I have many photo's of pollen grains but they are all of pollen taken from England and none from abroad. What had you in mind?

Regards; Bcrazy

Wildershins - what would you like to see?

 

[Finman]

.
I know a lot of pollen colours , what I identify, when bees carry them but there are some which I do not know what they are.

It is not difficult to learn when bees are in flowers.

Another thing is that I have tried to find nutrition values of pollen.

 

[Bcrazy]

Hi Finman

http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/HBE/01-047sum.html

This ones not too bad.

Bcrazy

 

[Bcrazy]

Hear is one pollen grain I am having problems trying to identify.

Bcrazy

 

[Finman]

HEH, your gardens must be full of strange pollens

 

[Hivemaker.]

A part of the honey bee anatomy i would like to know more about is there eyesight,pics if poss, and explain how they see.how they work,if you know these things.and how they distinguish colours.

 

[grizzly]

Seconded.
I would ike to see a closeup of the bees head, frontal particularly. but mainly as Hivemaker has requested please.

Thanks
Andy

 

[Bcrazy]

Hear are a couple of shots of the head.
I am writting up my response to Hivemaker regarding the eyes.

Regards;

 

[Bcrazy]

Hi Hivemaker,

The eye of the Honey bee is a complexed organ, there have been books written about the eyesand how they operate.

So I have tried to condense what I know about the eye to try and makeit easy to understand.

The compound eye consists of a number of small lenses, around 5,000-6,000 in the worker 3,500 in the queen and 10,000 in the drone.
The reason they have two large eyes is because being small insects they are unable to turn their heads very far yet they need to have a panoramic view to detect preditors and beekeepers. So bees have a convex retina spread over the surface of the head.

These small lenses or individual units are called ommatidia and has its own lense system. The makeup of the ommatidia is rather complex for me totry and explain it, but basically each lense will pass a photo signal to the brain, so there are thousands of pictures being sent at once.
Bees have a much better vision of fast moving objects than we have.

The need to forage is done by a number of mechamisms coming into play but the bee will need colour vision to identify certain plants and flowers. Plants and flowers change their times during the day when nectar and pollen will be available, therefore the bee must have sight and colour vision.

But .........Do bees see colour?

You tell me and I'll let you know if your right or wrong.

To finish off the insects eye is regarded as very inferior type of eye. (Man's perception) Which in my opinion is wrong because it is adapted to the needs of the particular insect.

Photo's

 

[Bcrazy]

the phots I should have added to the above post.

1. The compound eye of a Honey bee.
2. Individual lenses with a mechanosenory hair.
3. A three dimential view of the eye.

Regards;

 

[BKF Admin]

Bcrazy do bees see a different spectrum of light,hence the reason for white/light colored bee suites?

Do they see a sort of blue/purple light?

 

[Bcrazy]

Hi Admin and members,

do bees see a different spectrum of light,hence the reason for white/light coloured bee suites?

We know that light travels in wavelengths and each colour has a different wavelength. Within the compound eye of the Honey bee each ommatidium contains, I think its 9 different cells which react to the sensitivity of the colour wavelengths.

3 cells with max sensitivity UV light at 340nm
2 --------------------- blue region of light at 463nm
4 --------------------- green region of light at 530nm

Behavioural studies have shown that the bee sees UV as a distinct colour but it has not been found out what that colour is.

The basic mechanism of colour vision is the same in the bee eye as in a humans eye. The bee has a spectrum toward the shorter wavelengths so this would imply toward UV and lighter colours. Having said that I think the bee can see dark colours due to the amount of UV light.

With reference to white bee suits;
I don't believe that colour has a lot to do with beekeeping as they now do a camouflage type suit. I think its down to the type of material used. Nylon is good as its slippery, Cotton OK, but Woollen is right out of the question because the bees feet will become tangled in the woollen fibres and they will not be able to fly off so they will sting.

Do they see a sort of blue/purple light?

Bees see a range of colours from deep purple, lighten to blue, then into green then yellow, then orange, then grey, then light purple back to deep purple.

I hope that has been of some help.

Regards;

 

[Polyanwood]

Very interesting thank you.
You think that eyesight is their primary sense??

 

[Bcrazy]

Hi Polyanwood,

You think that eyesight is their primary sense??

If you think a bit about where bees live their eyesight is no good in a world of darkness. So no I do not consider their eyesight is their primary sense.

What do you think their primary sense is?

Regards;

 

[Hivemaker.]

The way they home in on honey i should think smell.

Bcrazy thank you also for putting all this imformation on here,much appreciated.

 

[Bcrazy]

Hi Hivemaker,

I believe that the bees do not have a single major factor in sight, smell and touch.
Every part of the bee is adapted to inform the bee of different smells (pheromones), taste (food exchange), and touch (antenna rubbing).

The antenna holds the most number of receptors followed by the leg hairs.
The whole of the abdomen hairs indicate to the bee a number of things.

Its a combination of a lot of senses that work together to inform the bee what's happening. Remembering that they spend half their lives in a dark environment.
Thought I had better add were talking summer bees.

Regards;