Juanse>Shall we conclude that no pollen is fed to larvae and those grains there
are in hive cross contamination and larvae is not able to diggest them?


I'd say we need more data before we could say anything conclusive, and even then it would an uphill battle to disprove decades of scientific literature stating the opposite. 

The Ian Stell photo of "pollen husks" in the midgut of a 10-day old larva on page 18 of his Understanding Bee Anatomy is curious and I'd like to learn more about the circumstances surrounding that microscopy. It appears that his slide is a near perfect cross-section of the midgut with all its contents just prior to elimination. 

I think the midgut of a 5th-instar larva can be teased out for examination but a procedure would need to be developed. I almost got a few out but using my crude methods the epithelial lining was too thin to hold the contents together so I defaulted to looking at a homogenized mass. The result is a much less concentrated mixture and the pollen cells were few and far between. 



Bill Hesbach
Cheshire CT

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