Out and about recently I came across this Chocolate Mining Bee, Andrena scotica, with bulging pollen brushes (scopa), so I put my pollen "skills" into action.
95% of the pollen grains in the sample were the lower, triangular-shaped grains. This is either Bird's-foot-trefoil, Lotus corniculatus, or more likely, Horseshoe Vetch, Hippocrepis comosa, which was present on this site. I can't tell the difference between these two and I'm not sure if it's possible without resorting to DNA. The remaining 5% were Cow Parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris, (the upper oval grain). This makes sense as while the entire site was fringed with Cow Parsley, and while it's not that attractive to bees, the sheer abundance of the pollen would make its absence a surprise.
So, within my limited skills, it works! The only thing that occurs to me is that I really didn't learn anything in this analysis that I didn't already know from observing the bees on site. It would be worth doing with bees from unknown sites, but a little behavioural observation in the field goes a long way.
As an aside, I'm also getting good results using dark field illumination for pollen. Can you guess what species this pollen is from (warning: it's a tricky one!)?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments welcome, I will respond as soon as I can.