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The COLOSS CSI Pollen Project 2016

csi

The COLOSS CSI Pollen project has run successfully in Scotland in both 2014 and 2015.  We are just starting it again in 2016, and many of our 2015 volunteers are continuing in 2016.  A few have had to drop out however, and as a result we do have some spare pollen traps available for new volunteers this year.  We are particularly short of volunteers from Angus and Fife.

What volunteers need:

  • Three colonies of honey-bees that will be kept in one location throughout the summer, preferably in National hives, but Smith hives will do.
  • Enough time to visit your apiary to close the traps on the hives for 24 hours on given week-ends at three week intervals throughout the summer. See the picture above!
  • About another hour or so where you - or if you suffer from colour-blindness, a friend with full colour vision - can sort the collected pollen pellets from your three hives into colour classes.
  • Access to an email account where the invitations to collect pollen can be sent, and from where your returns can be sent to the International Coordinator. Data returns consist of answers to a few simple questions.

Below is an example of the kind of colour sorting that you might do.

pollen

 

If you think you might like to participate, then please get in touch as soon as possible with the Scottish National Coordinator, Magnus Peterson, on magnus.peterson@strath.ac.uk and you will be sent full details along with the volunteers' Picture Manual with full instructions.


Magnus Peterson and Alison Gray, University of Strathclyde