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.

Daffodils are coming up

Daffodils coming through

Towards the end of last year I had planted kilos of daffodils and they have started to come up. They will look great in a couple weeks.

I have also hefted the hives and they all have food and they seem fine. Lots of bees. I collected some for a microscopy course I will be attending.

Module 3 results

The results arrived, and I didn't pass. The pass mark was 60% I got 45%. It was disappointing a very disappointing result.

It wasn't just me but all of us in the study group that had failed the exam. We had started the study for module six but we have dropped that and begun again on Module 3. We plan to retake the exam again in March.

Over the past couple of days I have started to reread the notes and its going in much easier I hope that its stays. Some of it is just a recap. So I have gone through European Foul Brood and American Foul Brood the most serious illness that bees can get infected with . AFB the bee dies of septicemia and EFB the larvae dies from starvation as the bacteria competes for food with the larvae.

Lots more study to get done.