Honey bee, pollen rake detail..and.. the "CRUSHER"

[Charles Krebs]

Whew! I had meant to post a new message and added to this one by mistake... took me 5 or 6 edits to figure out the character limit for the subject title!


On the honey bee leg image posted the other day I pointed out the pollen rake. The slide was still on the scope so I decided to look at it in more detail. The bee uses this "rake" to scrape together the pollen that is collected on the pollen brush of the opposite rear leg. This pollen is then moved into the leg joint where it is crushed against the auricle as the bee flexes its leg. It is then stored in the pollen basket located on the outside of the tibia. The tips of each bristle is flattened and squared off, like a slot screwdriver tip (you can see this best on the two or three at the left side). The bristles have various amounts of "twist" to them, perhaps making them perform their function more efficiently.

This was taken with a 25x Zeiss Neofluor using the same incident lighting used for the overall leg shot. I was sort of surprised that it illuminated as well as it did since the working distance is so small. I was also surprised that it "stacked" pretty nicely since each individual image looked rather hopeless.

[svalley]

Charles, great shot! Lighting and tonality are spot on. Your stacking did a good job separating the bristles from the BKG. Sometimes my software has a problem when the color and tonality are so similar. Well done!
_________________
"You can't build a time machine without weird optics"
Steve Valley - Albany, Oregon

[rjlittlefield]

Charlie, this is very beautiful, as always!

You commented:

[Bruce Williams]

So glad you decided to do this shot Charles - result is remarkably three dimensional. The more I study the image the more impressed I become!

(please visualise a "shaking head in amazed disbelief" emoticon)

Bruce

[Walter Piorkowski]

Charles, What is your source of study providing you with the knowledge of this rake etc?

Walt

[beetleman]

WOW Charles...beautiful image.
_________________
Take Nothing but Pictures--Leave Nothing but Footprints.
Doug Breda

[Charles Krebs]

Walt... the internet . There is quite a bit there, but these two pages were most helpful:
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/I/Insects.html
http://plantphys.info/Plants_Human/bees/bees.html

Rik... here are two "stack" images and the "final" at bottom. There were 55 images in the stack.


The 25x Neofluar has a na of 0.60 and the working distance is quite small. I don't have the specs, but it is not the solution you're looking for
It is not very happy without a cover slip (one was used for this shot). I think for a 20x used for incident light and stacking, a "M" type objective would be best (no cover slip), but even with these, working distance will need to be looked at carefully.

[Charles Krebs]

This will complete this set of shots. I had not intended to do this many (actually I was just playing around trying some lighting variations) but I do find it an interesting subject.

The top shot provides some context for the relationship between the rake and the auricle. The rake is at the lower end of the hind tibia, and the auricle is at the "top" end of the first tarsal segment. (In the top photo, the joint "pivot" would be just outside the image area, left side/central).

These two images give a pretty good look at the auricle... aka "anvil", "crusher". (The lower image is a cropped section of the upper).
Just looking at its surface, it is obvious how well this specialized feature would perform the task of crushing the pollen grains when the leg is flexed.

Nikon CFN Plan 10/0.30, Canon 350D. Stacked with Helicon Focus)

[svalley]

Charles this whole set of images is awesome! You are a master with the lighting!
_________________
"You can't build a time machine without weird optics"
Steve Valley - Albany, Oregon