Hey everybody
I'm here with my buddy Tim
We're heading down to Corvallis for visiting the bee lab at Oregon State University
Because we're going to be taking a class on dissecting bees and learning about
various viruses or diseases that can affect bees that you would usually get diagnosed in a bee lab
So we're going to be playing around with microscopes
and hopefully I'm going to be taking some pictures of some of the things I'm dissecting
and observing in the microscope
So if that works it will show up on video
Welcome to the dissecting portion of this video
On the Gore Scale, this video ranks "Some Guts"
If that bothers you, now would be a good time to go watch a cat video instead
Here is a honey bee
If you aren't familiar with the anatomy I'll point out the major body parts
There are 3 body segments
The head, thorax, and abdomen
They have hair all over their body that serves an important function in gather pollen
They have 6 legs and 4 wings: 2 on each side
Here is a front leg
This is the foot and this part attaches to the body
The pin in this photo is pointing out the antenna cleaning feature
Here is a back leg
The foot is over here and this part attaches to the body
In this photo, the pin is pointing to the pollen basket
When bees gather pollen they sweep it off the hairs on their body and pack it on to their back leg
This single hair acts as the anchor point for the mound of pollen they pack on to that concave area of the leg
Here are the wings
They have 2 pairs like this
The larger, front wing is shown upside-down here
I couldn't get it to stay right-side up, it kept flipping over on me
So I left it as-is
But the really interesting features I wanted to show are the hooks that are found on the smaller back wing
These hooks allow the small wing to hook on to the larger wing during flight
Now let's go over some of the features of the head
In order to do so I'm going to need to remove it
Bees have 5 eyes: 2 large compound eyes on either side of the head
and 3 ocelli in the center-top
They also have 2 antennae, but one has fallen off on this specimen
You'll notice that the antennae are located on the front of the head, right about where our nose would be
Not up on top as they are often drawn by cartoonists
They have spoon-shaped jaws called mandibles that open side-to-side
These are perfect for chewing and shaping wax
In order to get a good look at the mouth parts, I"m going to need to pull them off
They fold up under the head
This is often referred to as the "tongue" but there's much more to it than what we typically think of as a tongue
Here's an opportunity to take a closer look at the eyes
Notice how the compound eyes have hair in the facets
And right in the center-top of the head we can get a good look at one of the three ocelli
Opening the head proved to be very challenging
We were instructed to "take off the cuticle"
Easier said than done
It's a little like trying to peel an uncooked egg
A very small egg, with tweezers, under a microscope
The reason we opened the head was to locate the hypopharyngeal gland
This is the gland that produces the primary ingredient in royal jelly
When doing nutritional analysis this gland is removed and tested for its protien content
This is actually my 2nd attempt at dissecting the head
I found it easier to do this under water
Most of the debris floats off and you can see what you're doing much better
I'm still not very good at it and didn't really know exactly what I was looking at
Since everything inside the head is white, it's also easier to work over black plastic
insead of the yellow beeswax in the dish we were using
The hypopharyngeal gland looks like a cluster of pearls
There was a lot inside the head and I probably made a mess while doing this
If you're experienced at doing this you're probably cringing while you watch my horrible attempt
Now here you can see what is mostly hypopharyngeal
All those pearls, plus some other stuff
SInce my sample is not very good, let's cheat and take a look at my neighbor's sample
She did much better at isolating the hypopharyngeal gland
We also got to observe Nosema spores under the main classroom microscope
but I couldn't hook my camera up to it
So I didn't get any photos or video of that
But here's a simple field test you can do to check for a possible Nosema infection
First take the head off the bee
This will disconnect the digestive tract from the head and make it easier to remove
Then pinch the last couple of segments of the abdomen and pull the digestive tract out
You may have to hold on to the rest of the abdomen
As you pull it apart you'll see the digestive system unfold
The bulging part at the top is the ventriculus, or midgut
If this bee had a Nosema infection then this organ would appear whitish and swollen
It's difficult to tell the color in this photo because my white balance may be off
But this is what a swollen ventriculus looks like
Normally you should be able to make out individual rings
This photo I found online shows a good comparison
The top sample shows a normal ventriculus where you can make out the segmentation
The bottom sample is swollen
Now compare that again to my sample
This bee may have been infected with Nosema
Or I did this wrong and we're not looking at the ventriculus, that's certainly possible too
Now here's the part everyone is afraid of
The stinger!
That thing is super sharp!
A few people got to dissect a queen bee and observe some of her different and unique internal organs
I didn't get to, but another neighbor let me take a look at his
This egg-like structure found in the last few segments of the queen's abdoment is the spermatheca
This is the organ that stores the sperm from the drones the queen mated with during her nuptial flights
She mates with a dozen or more drones and has enough sperm to last her entire life
All stored up in this little, spherical organ
In a virgin queen this looks transparent
but is a light tan/cream color in a mated queen
If you enjoyed looking at these things under the microscope, I've also linked in a video from last year
where I used an inexpensive, hand-held digital microscope to look at Varroa mites
I also put these photos up on my webpage if you want to take a closer look
The link is in the show notes
Thanks for watching!