Monika Yordanova leads on this study exploring coexposure of pesticides & Enterococcus on the health of developing bee larvae 🐝. Often seen as a pathogen, small doses of the microbe may reduce some of the impacts of pesticide toxicity under some conditions.
doi.org/10.1093/fems...

📣 Imperial College Research Fellowships!

Prestigious 4yr fellowship

✔️ Salary from £48k
✔️ Up to £45k for research
✔️ A supportive, inclusive research environment
✔️ UK or international
✔️ <4 yrs post-PhD

Drop me a pm if you are interested in bee/microbe related research! tinyurl.com/mr3k5a93

Funded PhD opportunity in the Graystock lab! If you are interested in pollinators, microbes, parasites and machine learning, please get in touch! - only a few days left to let me know! Whilst a project using the above is planned, im happy to adapt to the strengths of a candidate

Nice to catch up with everyone at the #IUSSI conference in London today. A good representation from the lab too with some excellent student posters! With @nesbit-sci.bsky.social, Charlotte and Monika - I think it's also safe to say my phone camera has seen better days!

There's just something about bee mites that makes me feel uneasy! anyway - here's a picture of some poor bees at the end of a field experiment we ran (we hadn't considered mites in the design but they became an interesting part of the study!). Its amazing how many mites a single bee can carry!

In the lab we have been enjoying learning and optimising methods to rear bumblebee larvae in the lab. Its more involved than rearing honey bees but just a cute to see then consume the diet!

In 2015 i helped document the oldest known wasp individual (atleast 506 days old). Will this get me on to the #wasplove starter pack @waspwoman.bsky.social ?

peerj.com/articles/848/

We've upgraded the labs 3D printer and its such a cool toy! here it is printing a graduate students design that will be showcased at the upcoming winter IUSSI conference at QMUL

Putting QR codes on bees to track them may seem like a very cool thing to do, but don't be fooled, you've got to keep these puppies clean and that is one laborious task!

Taking a look down the microscope at bumblebee guts and watching lots of crithidia bombi (a bee parasite) swimming around! 🐝🐝 #parasites #pollinator #microscope

2/2 The models captured are pretty neat, I need to work on getting the scanner to the bottom of the open cells. You can clearly see the bumblebee cocoons here though. This should open the door for some interesting work on nest and bee development #3dscan #bumblebee #bee #nest

1/2 Capturing the architecture of bumblebee nests in 3 dimensions! First look with the new 3D scanner, some refining to do but so far so good! #bee #nest #3dscanning #3dscan

We're looking for a lab tech (3yr) with experience in microbial ecology and/or controlled plant growth. This is part of the exciting large 'Green Revolution' project which includes 2 technicians, 5 postdocs & 5 PIs all based at Silwood Park, Imperial College London www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

The honey bees active and finding the pollen, good signs for the year ahead! They have already started to conspire against me documenting their hives though..