how to wash bees

15
Setting up Your Own Beeuty Salon Sam Droege Mark Inda

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This slide show documents how to wash bees that have been collected in water or preserved in alcohol.

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: How To Wash  Bees

Setting up Your Own Beeuty SalonSam Droege

Mark Inda

Page 2: How To Wash  Bees

The ProblemThe Problem

While it is very handy to capture and store bees in water, alcohol, glycol, or formalin

Bees pinned straight out of those liquids look atrocious

Hair heavily matted, wings glued to one another, and identifying the specimen is difficult

And they just look bad and who wants to look at bad looking bees?

Page 3: How To Wash  Bees

The SolutionThe Solution Getting a good looking specimen is a 2

step process

1. Good Washing 2. Good Drying

Page 4: How To Wash  Bees

Both Step are Both Step are NecessaryNecessary

Don’t delude yourself that your specimens are any different

Page 5: How To Wash  Bees
Page 6: How To Wash  Bees

The Bee Washer The Bee Washer Creating a bee washer is so easy there

is no reason not too Get a pint or quart canning jar (buy a

jar with preserves of jam in it from the farmer’s market)

Page 7: How To Wash  Bees

The Bee WasherThe Bee Washer Remove the central metal disk Replace that disk with a piece of

plastic window screen Plastic window screen is cheap and

sold in any hardware store. Plastic window screen is preferable to

metal screens as metal screens often unravel

Page 8: How To Wash  Bees
Page 9: How To Wash  Bees

Bee WashingBee Washing To wash bees dump your specimens into

the bee washer with whatever liquid they are stored in

If they are reluctant to leave that container, just add more water to flush them out

Replace the lid with the screen in place Dump the liquid out through the screen Add some water and rinse the specimens

once to get that gookiest sludge out

Page 10: How To Wash  Bees

Wet Insects are ToughWet Insects are Tough We have never seen any damage to

insects during the washing phase You can shake and swirl them to your

heart’s content

Page 11: How To Wash  Bees

Warm Water – NOT Cold Warm Water – NOT Cold WaterWater

Add enough warm water to amply cover the specimen, but don’t fill the jar to the top.

Usually this means about 1/3 to 1/4 full

Like washing your clothes, warm water not cold water gets the pollen, dirt, and especially the regurgitated nectar (the worst)out

Page 12: How To Wash  Bees

DetergentizeDetergentize Add a big squirt of dish washing

detergent Other cleaning fluids will work fine too,

such as ammonia, degreaser, 409, laundry detergent, etc.

Dish washing detergent keeps your hands nice and soft though

Page 13: How To Wash  Bees

Swirl Vigorously for One Swirl Vigorously for One Minute and Minute and NotNot Less Less

People tend to shortcut this phase and then wonder why their specimens look all goopy

Duh. When you wash your clothes you don’t just dip them in water…or do you?

Bees look bad usually because you didn’t wash them long enough to get rid of the nectar in their hair

Hint: While swirling for one minute read email from your Supervisor

Page 14: How To Wash  Bees

Rinse Until ClearRinse Until Clear Now simply dump out the water in the

jar (through the screen obviously) And add and dump water until the

water is clear

Page 15: How To Wash  Bees

Next: Drying Your Clean Next: Drying Your Clean BeesBees

See the associated slide shows or Power Points on Bee drying (soon to come)◦ Paper Towel Technique◦ Blow Dryer Technique◦ Automatic Dryer