coloured pollen on a frame

[Mo Vaughan]

[Mo Vaughan]

This is 'the beeman' commenting on the picture.
When i looked at it on my PC it did not look out of colour which this shot does. I realise the shapness and clarity is not there either. I promise to try harder.
the beeman.

[rjlittlefield]

Mo, yeah, it's a bit fuzzy but the colors don't seem all that bad -- but of course I don't know what they're supposed to look like. What are the colors supposed to be? More important, can you tell us a bit more about what we're looking at here? Is this pollen of various colors that the bees have harvested and packed into cells of their comb? What's a "frame"? Are the flat-topped cells ones that have been filled and then covered over with something like wax? Why do some of the open cells seem to be shiny and some dull? Sorry for all the questions -- I'm just curious and quite naive about beekeeping.

--Rik

[Mike B in OKlahoma]

I think these are bee cells with pollen stored, but hopefully Mo can explain it for us civilians!

Mo, you didn't provide us with any of the "technicals" on this, but it is a bit fuzzy. Two possible explanations that come to mind for me are that either you're shooting from an unstable mount with a long exposure time (most likely, I think), or that perhaps you are manually focusing and are just too close to the cells.

If you are shooting handheld without flash, you probably had a really long exposure time for this. Enough to make it fuzzy if you were handholding. You might try shooting with a tripod if you haven't used one previously.

[Mo Vaughan]

What are we looking at?
This is a frame of capped brood taken out of a bee hive.
The coffee coloured cells are where the pupa is developing into a mature honeybee.
The coloued cells are of stored pollen. The diffence in coloue is because the bees have been feeding on different types of flora. Dark blue would be poppy, whereas the yellow could be a single type of flora, but I would guess its a mixture. You can see thay are not particular where or what they store.
Pollen is use to feed larvae and its mixed with a secreation from the glands of the head to make 'bee bread'. Pollen is for growth and muscle building.
There are about 55.3 cells per square inch, so they really are quite small.
In future I will try to add information of how I took the photograph and a little speal about what you are looking at.
Thankyou for your comments as I have said before I am new to close up photography.
'thebeeman'

[rjlittlefield]

Mo,

So, are the caps on the cells supposed to be the color of beeswax? If so, I can see why you were concerned about the first picture. This new one is a lot more yellow -- matches my memory of wax a lot better.

The mathematician in me cannot resist thinking about this picture, trying to get an idea of how big these things are...

55.3 cells per square inch would mean that the cells are about 1/7 inch across -- less than 4 mm.

I have a paper wasp nest in front of me at the moment. (It's like the one shown here, but a different specimen.) Cells in the paper wasp nest measure right at 1/5" across the flats (0.21" = 5.3 mm, according to my digital calipers). So my paper wasp cells are a bit bigger than your honeybee cells. That surprises me a little bit, since according to my fuzzy memories from experiences long long ago, the honeybee cells were bigger.

To cross-check, I scurried off to search the web to see what I could find published about honeybee cell sizes. (Google: honeybee cells per square inch .)

Up popped this article, which says

In fact to quote E.B. Wedmore for the range of cell sizes to be found in England we note: "Foundation for worker brood is generally made to give comb with about 4 3/4 to 5 cells per inch run (measured across the flats), the latter more commonly, and 4 cells per inch for drone brood. The area of the hexagon of a cell then becomes such as to give 26 to 29 worker cells per square inch and 18.5 drone cells, in each case counted on one side of the comb, and not allowing for stretching". E.B. Wedmore then goes further saying: "In nature the INSIDE dimensions of worker cells across the flats may vary as much as from, say, 0.195 to 0.235 inch with the same lot of bees, and will vary still more as between races having the smallest and largest bees. Similarly, in one lot of bees drone comb may run from 0.22 to 0.26 inch".

.
So now I'm really curious. What kind of bees are yours, and are their cells really a lot smaller than what Wedmore was working with, or has something gone awry in the measuring process? Questions, questions -- sorry if I'm a bother!

--Rik

[Mo Vaughan]

OK Rik,
The second shot I have tried to show the better colour of the capped cells and the pollen.
Rik, you wanted to re the cell sizes. This is from Mark L Winston 'The Biology of the Honeybee'.

In Italian (Apis mellifera ligustica) and other european bee races the worker cells are generally 5.2 - 5.4 mm in diameter. Drone cells are 6.2 - 6.4 in diameter.

In older colonies where many bees have been bread the cell size will become smaller due to the continious moults that take place.

Studies showed that the first cells constructed by ferel Africanized bees were 4.6 - 4.7.

So you can see there is quite a varience in sizes.
If anyone has any questions regarding beekeeping or the shots I hope to produce (when I get my camera) then please feel free to ask.
'thebeeman'

[rjlittlefield]

Mo,

Thanks for the additional info.

There is still an unexplained conflict in these numbers.

Assuming that the cells are perfect hexagons, then cells that are:

5.2 mm across the flats pack at 27.5 per square inch
6.4 mm across the flats pack at 18.2 per square inch

So the dimensions given by Winston (5.2 mm, 6.4 mm) are consistent with Wedmore's numbers of "26 to 29 worker cells per square inch and 18.5 drone cells".

What I can't make sense out of is the "55.3 cells per square inch" that appears in your second post. That would correspond to a cell size across the flats of only 3.67 mm, much smaller than any of Winston's numbers (and correspondingly bigger than Wedmore's).

Where did the "55.3 cells per square inch" come from? What does that number mean?

I'm sorry to be so persistent about this, but I really am curious. Numbers that don't match up always bother me. It's a curse...

--Rik

[Mo Vaughan]

Thankyou Rik for making me re read my books. You are perfectly correct when you say the measurements do not match up.

I have now read the informatio and I should have said, 'the approximate number of cells on both sides of the comb for worker cells is 55.3' per square inch.

27.65 would then be right when matched to Winstons & Wedmore's.
Sorry for the mix up.

What a brilliant investitive mind you have.
All the very best
the beeman

[rjlittlefield]

... and I should have said, 'the approximate number of cells on both sides of the comb for worker cells is 55.3' per square inch.

27.65 would then be right when matched to Winstons & Wedmore's.

Ahh, perfect! A very satisfying resolution.

Now we know the scale of your picture quite closely. It is almost exactly 10 cells wide, so total field width must be very close to 52 mm -- about 2 inches.

Thanks for the followup! (And also for the compliment -- sometimes my persistence is seen in other ways... )

BTW, what equipment did you use to photograph this?

--Rik

[Mike B in OKlahoma]

Rik is big on measurements and sizes and making the sums come out right, I know from experience that not much in these areas escapes his scrutiny! The information and discussions that come from the photos are a big part of the appeal of this forum in my opinion. There are other places on the net to look at good macro shots, but no other I'm aware of where informed and courteous discussions and followup of some of the facts behind the photos takes place on such a regular basis.

[Mo Vaughan]

Hi Gentlemen,
I think I have mentioned in the past that my first hobby is beekeeping and a couple of off shoots to this is microscopy & photography.

Beekeeping I am fair to middling, microscopy (i'll let you know in October when I take an exam in microscopy), and lastly photography. No comment.

I have a DiMAGE A1 5mp digital camera. All my shots so far have been the the original lense and I double the image, get as close as I can, flick the macro knob, and hope for the best.
I believe there are different methods using various appature settings and shutter speeds but that is way above my head.
Over to you boffins of photography.
To Mike B in Anny Oakly country, this is an excellent site with members passing on information for the benifit of everyone else. Fantastic.

I can't wait to get my microscope camera and then I'll be taking shots of pollen and anatomy, great.
Thankyou one & all
the beeman