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Honey forensics – pollen in honey from St Petersburg 

| Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:25 AM



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Today, I had a really fun tea session with the principle and teachers at school number 30, in the heart of St. Petersburg. We ran a foldscope workshop for students from several schools in the area (documentation coming soon).

While drinking my tea with honey, I decided to look at the honey under a foldscope.

Now; I was reallly intrigued by two things:

1) the long pencil like crystals; usually I see sugar crystals to have the same aspect ratio – but not clearlybthe case here. Also, is honey supposed to have micro-crystals if it’s pure?

2) secondly, I was able to find two kind of pollen grains. This gets me very excited; because it might be possible to find where the honey was collected by the bee itself.

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Just so you are wondering, this is the brand of honey that was served. The waiter was kind to bring me the whole box. I can’t read Russian; but maybe you can help me identify this brand.

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Offcourse, the waiter enjoyed the spectacle and watching honey for the first time. He was so happy!! Clearly not expecting a microscopy lesson on the table.

I am now on the quest to find which flower this honey might be from. On the bottle, it is claimed that the flower is this one:

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Keep exploring.

Cheers

Manu



Locations



Categories

Type of Sample
unknown
Foldscope Lens Magnification
140x

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