The Bee, Magnified: Microscopic Photography by Rose-Lynn Fisher

4 minute read

The honeybee is the most geometrically minded of insects. The honeycomb that bees build with wax is always laid out in quasi-horizontal, non-angled hexagonal cells, to be filled with bee larvae and stores of honey and pollen. It’s a perfect shape, repeated over and over again each time a honeybee colony builds out its hive. This is deep geometry.

The first time photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher looked at a bee’s eye magnified through a scanning electron microscope, she saw that same repeated hexagonal pattern. She was struck by the symmetry. “There was an echoing of the hexagon in the structure of the bee’s eye, just like the pattern of the honeycomb in form and structure,” she says. “Is it a coincidence? A clue?”

The sight helped inspire Fisher to begin a multi-year project centered on highly composed photographs of bee parts magnified through the scanning electron. The results reveal the intricate complexity that makes up something as seemingly simple as bee. Magnified 800 times, the invisible hairs that sprout from a bee’s eyes looks like a forest, with fat cells of pollen trapped between the branches. Magnified 150 times, the segments of the finely jointed antenna all pop visibly: the pollen-covered scape, the knob-shaped pedicel and the flagellum. Each of the 6,900 hexagonal lenses is visible in the eye, magnified 200 times, as if the visual organ were a futuristic chessboard. Magnified 600 times, the bee’s proboscis—the spoon like tip of the tongue that flicks out to absorb nectar, water and honey, seems otherworldly.

As Verlyn Klinkenborg writes in his introduction to Fisher’s book, Bee, “there’s nothing general about a honeybee”—and her photographs bear that out. Every part of the bee’s body is seemingly designed to further its specific purpose: to make its way into the world, to capture pollen and carry it back to the hive, even to die in its defense with a stinger that, when employed, rips out the bee’s own innards. “As though revealing a secret, the scanning electron microscope presents a realm of structure, design and pattern at a level of intricacy we are oblivious to in our daily experience,” writes Klinkenborg. Fisher’s photographs make visible that microscopic symmetry.

But while the honeybee may be perfectly suited to its purpose, the world around the insect is changing—and not for the better. Bees are bombarded with pesticides, beset by deadly mites in their hives, sickened with new diseases and starved of nutrition as the fields they pollinate are replaced with rows of monocultured corn and soybeans. The bees are dying, and our actions—conscious and unconscious—are at fault. “We’re so out of balance,” says Fisher. “They’re the canaries in the coal mine.” More than that, there’s a connection between the bees and us, a connection that goes beyond the simple fact that the pollination work of the honeybee puts food on our tables. We’re part of the same world, from the “microscopic to the cosmic” as Fisher puts it—and we need to keep that world together.

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Rose-Lynn Fisher is a fine-art photographer. Her book, BEE, is available through Princeton Architectural Press.

Bryan Walsh is a senior editor for TIME International & environmental writer. Follow him on Twitter @bryanrwalsh.


Sabine, 15x The body of the honeybee comprises the head, thorax and abdomen. The antennae, eyes, proboscis and mandibles are part of the head. Four wings and six legs are attached to the thorax. The internal and reproductive organs, glands, wax plates and sting are parts of the abdomen.Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Elliptical dome of bee eye, 190x The honeybee has two large, hairy, compound eyes, each made up of thousands of hexagonal, faceted lenses. There are also three single-lens ocelli (simple eyes) on the head that monitor light intensity.Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Eye, 200xRose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Eye pollen, 800x The hairs on the bee’s eyes collect pollen as well.Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Antenna Sockets, 43x The antennae are the sensory organs of the bee for smelling, tasting, and hearing, as well as detecting changes in temperature, vibration, wind and humidity.Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Proboscis, 600x The proboscis is a complex apparatus with many parts that function together to create a straw-like, airtight chamber for drawing up nectar, honey and water, as well as allowing the bee to transfer food to other worker bees. Nectar, water, and honey are lapped up and first absorbed by the flabellum, the flexible, spoon-like tip of the tongue which is pictured here.Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Sting, 650x A honeybee only stings in self-defense or in defense of the hive. When she stings a person or other mammal, the barbs of the sting become anchored in the flesh. As she tries to free herself, the last segment of her abdomen is ripped out and she dies. Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Abdomen, 70x The abdomen is divided into two segments at a narrow constriction called the petiole. This is a seldom-seen view of the end of the first segment that is ordinarily hidden (it fits into the opening of the second segment). The petiole enables agile movement of the second segment of the abdomen for laying eggs, mating, or stinging.Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Antenna, 150x A side view of an antenna with pollen, branched hairs, and eye (far right).Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Pollen press hind leg, 130x A long, curved hair helps to hold the pollen in place as the bee collects each grain to form a whole pellet. The ridge on the right is the base for pressing the pollen.Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Leg Pollen, 1100x These are magnified grains of pollen in the pollen basket on the tibia of the hind leg, anchored by the bee’s hairs.Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Wing base, 550x A close-up of the wing base. Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Wing, 170x A view of the wing hooks attaching to the wing fold.Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Wing hooks, 700x A closer view of the wing hooks, called hamuli.Rose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.
Rear, 10xRose-Lynn Fisher—Courtesy Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.

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