Did you know that there are bee scientists? Well, there are and they test just about everything. I am going to tell you about what the scientist that I met is doing in his lab. The scientist I met was Nick. He is going to ESU. 

Nick invited me to come to his lab and he gave me a tour of what he does and the equipment he uses. They use a microscope to see the bees under it. They need this because sometimes they just need the bees guts or brain. I got to disaqed a bee and it is really hard because it is so tiny. 

You might be thinking how they get the bees. Well, they have four hives off campus and they use this bee vacuum to get it. They were telling me how it is kinda sketchy because the only way for the bees not to escape is to put a paper towel at the entrance. 

They also built this contraption to test different pesticides. They do this to try and train the bees in a way because if you give them the pesticide smell then they eat sugar water then you blow away the smell. And that is kind of like when your dog sits you give it a treat. They also do this to see how long it takes for a bee to die with a pesticide.

The scientists are also trying to see if CBD is a solution for framer pesticides. CBD is an oil you get from hemp plants and if they find out that this works then beekeepers just have to plant hemp on their property. Basically they are saying that if bees get  nectar from hemp then go to a field that got spread by pesticides that is not supposed to affect them. That would be really cool if this works.  

This was a very cool experience to go to this lab and see what they do. My favorite part of this was dissecting a bee. It really puts in perspective on how small but hairy these bees are. Thank you Nick for letting me come to your lab!