Rained all day but we needed to check the queen. Her cage was full of bees but we did not see her, although the large bee in the center of this picture may have been a queen. The hard rain made this difficult and the bees were not happy. But, they s look active, healthy and very few bullet cells, so all may be well and this was the queen. We will check again when the sun is out. If this queen does not survive, this hive will have to be combined with the strong hive.

more lab work ...

The queen placed in the weak hive last week was apparently not accepted by the hive and not fed. One of the several reasons for her non acceptance by the hive could be that the queen has depleted her sperm stores but remains in the hive producing haploid larvae that will be drones. This dead queen was replaced with another queen.

Last week Hilary collected four large jars of honey, but noticed one hive was not very active. This week she is spending with Max, her two month old nephew, in the cities. Paul checked the hive and replaced the queen, since no queen could be found and the workers were making excess drones, see picture of bullet shape cells. ( for the queen next door?) The bees were not happy and expressed that by giving a few stings. In a few days we will open the hive to check the new queen.

activity of microbes isolated from burr comb

Hilary says this needs to be made more understandable. So...will give it a try. The pictures are cell line NCI-H82, selected because it forms easily visable aggregates in suspension. The purpose is to use H82 as a rapid screen for microbial products isolated from routine testing and study interactions. These pictures demonstrate the inhibition/kill of a fungal filtrate identified using these same cells as a rapid screen. The plates were over grown to more easily demonstrate growth by pH color change as well as the obvious aggrates. The controls are the wells with no filtrate added, overgrown with cell aggrates and obvious pH color change. The plates with this fungal filtrate added did not have any visable growth, pH color change and no H82's were seen microscopically. The "blue" picture is a photomicrograph of a control.

Two six well plates were used, one plate was all controls, the other plate (see picture) had two controls and four wells with duplicate amounts of filtrate. A variety of bacteria have been checked, my area of interest, and some inhibition noted, but this easy to work with fungal isolate was selected to try to hone the technique. Antibiotics are not used in the media so microbial contamination is a constant threat.

cousins from India

Amit Hui, plasma physicist and his wife, Kumkum Hui , teacher, from India and Ron, philosophy professor and Hilary's father watch Hilary checking the supers added last week. Although it has been cloudy, the bees are good natured, but not enough honey produced to add to our lunch. In India, the Huis like mango blossom honey. Hilary's sister Tiffany, PhD student, and her husband, Susanta Hui, medical physicist, look at the spring fed stream nearby.

might be mites

Paul and Hilary mite-checked a hive several miles from here that survived the winter. Powdered sugar method was used. Only about 40 bees were checked since Hilary had her first sting today, 3 on one hand; she thinks honey on her hand attracted bees and then they got stuck and the hives were not as user-friendly as ours. These mites can jump at least 6 cm. The Blue Heron was in the pond close to the bees at about 7 AM probably looking for frogs, undisturbed by us or the bees.