High Magnification Honey Bee Images

Have you ever wondered what honey bees look like up close? Wonder no more!

We submitted deceased bees for a high tech photo shoot with a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Scanning electron microscopes work by coating the specimen (in this case the honey bee) with an ultra thin layer of gold. Once coated, excited electrons are bounced off the specimen which are detected by the microscope and translated into an image. SEM images are always black and white, as electrons have no color spectrum. This imaging technique allows for high magnification with high resolution.

Also see our varroa mite SEM photo gallery here!