Anthony P. Solli
Time:
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One lab period
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Materials:
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Honeybees, insect pins, cork, and handlenses
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For teacher:
It will be best to provide bee specimens for the students, rather than to have them do the collecting. Bee stings are dangerous, and to persons who are sensitive to bee venom, stings can be extremely serious.
Interested students may want to remove various parts of a bee’s body and observe them, using the low power of a microscope. Parts such as antennae, wings, or legs can be removed with a forceps, and placed on a slide under a cover glass for viewing.
If the honeybee is pinned through its thorax, you can use a large cork as an observation platform. A hand lens will be helpful for examining the body parts in detail.
For student:
Note that the body is divided into three major regions: a head, a thorax, and an abdomen. The wings and legs are attached to the thorax.
Locate the paired antennae and the compound eyes on the bee’s head. These are sensory organs that aid the bee in locating food. Observe the mouth parts. They consist of several long structures that form a tube. Nectar is drawn up through this tube into the bee’s stomach.
Examine the honeybee’s legs. They are covered with hairs that collect pollen as the bee visits flowers. On the front legs are pollen brushes. These are used to sweep pollen from the body to the pollen baskets located on the hind legs. There is a notch on the front leg that is used to clean the antennae. Another part of the front leg serves as a brush for cleaning the compound eyes. The long, sharp spur on the two middle legs functions to remove pollen from the pollen baskets. The pollen is then stored in the comb of the hive.
Finally look for the stinger. It appears as a
dark, needlelike part protruding from the tip of the abdomen. Other parts of the stinging apparatus are inside the body, including a poison sac and poison glands.