A Microscopic Look at a Bee

WARNING: this article contains extremely close-up images of a dead bee, so if you are afraid or disgusted of dead insects, then this article is not for you.

At last, the arrival of spring, flowers blooming, bees buzzing, and many other wonderful moments.

While we were playing tennis, my dad and I found a dead bee in our yard and decided to look at it through our microscope.

Here are some of the bee’s scientific facts

• Scientific Name: Apis mellifera
• Order: Hymenoptera (membrane wings)
• They are social insects, as they live together in fairly large colonies

Bees are also very important, as they produce honey and help pollinate flowers.

We have used this microscope:

These are images of our preparation:

The glass blade is used for holding the piece of the bee we want to view nice and flat

In the following image, we are going to cover the wing with a smaller glass blade after placing a drop of water on it

A bee looks really interesting under a microscope:

The wings are made of transparent membranes.

Here are a few images of a leg:

Here are images of the bee’s head:

A compound eye is what most insects have, they are made of many tiny eyes that are just like ours, and can work in unison, enabling the bee to see in many different directions at once.

These are images of a bee’s abdomen: