a long randy Oliver snip followed by my comments and questions...
I had a visiting beekeeper from Chile yesterday, so we looked at the guts
of some 5th instar larvae.
Protocol: uncap newly-sealed cells, gently remove the larva with forceps.
Crush the larva and stir the body fluids.
Add cover slip.
Look under a scope at 400x--scanning across for pollen grains.

Some have zero, some (which typically show yellow when crushed) show some
grains.
In some larvae, there are obviously digested pollen grains.

> First I am confused about this Randy in that you start of talking about 5 star larvae and then speak of 'uncap new-sealed cells'.. which first sounds a bit contradictory and more about the pupae stage than the larvae stage... what am I missing here?

secondly to my understanding (and do correct me if I am wrong) in the larvae stage the full gut of the larvae is not developed but is developing from the digestive tracts two ends and anything like a pollen grain could not be digested anyway... to my understanding it is only in the pupae stage where the full length of the digestive tract is approaching full development.

Gene in central Texas..



  

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