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BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: van from Arkansas on September 19, 2019, 08:13:38 pm

Title: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: van from Arkansas on September 19, 2019, 08:13:38 pm
I found a honey sickly honey bee a long ways from my apiary: deformed wings, half antenna and crawling with a weird stinger.  I could see with the naked eye the stinger is strange.  So I looked with a stereo microscope,  what you see in the pic is the venom sac and 3 strands of what appears to be a very abnormal stinger.  Birth defect, virus caused, I don?t know.  Where did this bee come from, it could only crawl??

Pic magnifying at about 60X.

Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: The15thMember on September 19, 2019, 09:10:54 pm
Woah, that?s wild! 
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: van from Arkansas on September 19, 2019, 09:40:07 pm
Member, I wanted to post a pic of an intact stinger but I could not find a sick honey bee and I don?t wish to kill a healthy one.  I did find a dead yellow jacket in front of a hive.  The yellow jacket was killed by a honey bee stinger to the thorax, or chest the yellow jacket.

Dark outside now, so tomorrow, weather permitting, I will find an old honey bee and post a pic of normal stinger.
Van
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: The15thMember on September 19, 2019, 11:47:04 pm
I think our friend Google can probably help us out here.  :grin:

Ta-dah!  Found this on Flickr.  Now we have a good comparison and no bees were harmed, well, by us at least.  :cheesy:
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: CoolBees on September 20, 2019, 01:00:48 am
Very interesting Van. You raise the "Million Dollar" question - where did she come from? ... it is worrisome. ...
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: Ben Framed on September 20, 2019, 01:52:01 am
Wow!
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: BeeMaster2 on September 20, 2019, 08:34:54 am
Good post.
In your first post Van, all of the parts of the stinger are there, just contorted. It has two barbs for penetrating the skin and the longer one is the needle to transfer the venom.
Jim Altmiller
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: van from Arkansas on September 20, 2019, 10:14:22 am
Jim, exactly!!!  A honeybee stinger is actually made of 3 parts: 2 barbed sleeves that oscillate back and forth around a central hollow pointed shaft that delivers venom.  In the pic, all three are shown but never developed as a single normal stinger so I used the word mutated.

Member thanks for the pic, thanks so much.

Van
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: van from Arkansas on September 20, 2019, 06:55:02 pm
As stated above, today I would photograph and post pic of a normal honey bee stinger.
Not real clear but one can see barbs close to point of stinger.


Cheers
Van
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: BeeMaster2 on September 21, 2019, 07:02:37 pm
Don?t know if it will show up but here are 2 good pictures:
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://beespotter.org/topics/stings/honeybarb.bmp&imgrefurl=https://beespotter.org/topics/stings/&docid=XPuR4TMf6dIW1M&tbnid=811tz4530Q_A6M:&vet=1&w=500&h=325&hl=en-us&source=sh/x/im

https://www.google.com/search?q=picture+of+the+barbs+on.a+honey+bee+stinger&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#imgrc=aJXlFL7Mzbj_9M:

Jim Altmiller
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: van from Arkansas on September 21, 2019, 07:27:52 pm
Jim, both pics show bards, clearly.  The second pic taken by electron microscope is so vivid, clear close up with spectacular sharpness and detail.  Thanks for taking time to search and post.
Van
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: The15thMember on September 21, 2019, 09:12:43 pm
Jim, both pics show bards, clearly.  The second pic taken by electron microscope is so vivid, clear close up with spectacular sharpness and detail.  Thanks for taking time to search and post.
Van
Agreed.  I too love looking at electron microscope images.  Amazing the details that are visible at the microscopic level.  I received a book as a Christmas present last year that is full of pictures of bees and their anatomical structures taken with electron microscopes.  Such a cool book.  It's called Bee, by Rose-Lynn Fisher, in case anyone is interested.   
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: Ben Framed on September 21, 2019, 09:17:26 pm
As stated above, today I would photograph and post pic of a normal honey bee stinger.
Not real clear but one can see barbs close to point of stinger.


Cheers
Van

I do see the barbs. Interesting.
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: van from Arkansas on September 21, 2019, 09:36:23 pm
Jim, both pics show bards, clearly.  The second pic taken by electron microscope is so vivid, clear close up with spectacular sharpness and detail.  Thanks for taking time to search and post.
Van
Agreed.  I too love looking at electron microscope images.  Amazing the details that are visible at the microscopic level.  I received a book as a Christmas present last year that is full of pictures of bees and their anatomical structures taken with electron microscopes.  Such a cool book.  It's called Bee, by Rose-Lynn Fisher, in case anyone is interested.   

Member, thanks!!  I purchased the book, paperback, new from Amazon.   The pic on the cover is an amazing pic showing details.
Van
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: The15thMember on September 21, 2019, 09:49:24 pm
Jim, both pics show bards, clearly.  The second pic taken by electron microscope is so vivid, clear close up with spectacular sharpness and detail.  Thanks for taking time to search and post.
Van
Agreed.  I too love looking at electron microscope images.  Amazing the details that are visible at the microscopic level.  I received a book as a Christmas present last year that is full of pictures of bees and their anatomical structures taken with electron microscopes.  Such a cool book.  It's called Bee, by Rose-Lynn Fisher, in case anyone is interested.   

Member, thanks!!  I purchased the book, paperback, new from Amazon.   The pic on the cover is an amazing pic showing details.
Van
You're welcome.  :grin:  I figured you'd like that book, if you didn't know of it already.   
Title: Re: Microscopic view of mutated honey bee stinger.
Post by: The15thMember on September 21, 2019, 09:50:52 pm
 :shocked:  Look, I just leveled up to field bee!   :grin:  I'd like to thank my family and all my sponsors. . .  :wink:  :cheesy: