Sunday, January 25, 2015

BBKA Introduction to Microscopy Stoneleigh

Attended the Warwickshire Bee Keepers Introduction to Microscopy.

I took my own microscopes in and used them for the practical work
We looked at Pollen grains and attempted to look for Nosema spores in dead bees under compound microscopes.

I also did a dissection of a been looking for acrine and Tracheal Mite using a dissection microscope.

All the practicals were very useful, I need to gain more practical experience using the microscopes. I would also like to have my own library of pollen samples from the orchard.

We learn to setup microscopes, the chemicals used to stain pollen, How to identify pollen, which is difficult but the pollen grains are very pretty. I had sample of Jasmine, and Snowdrops. The Jasmine pollen was nice very intricate the snowdrop pollen was a little boring.

It was an educational day.


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