Pollen and bee bread are very sensitive to high temperatures and light , meaning that it is important that they are kept in cold storage immediately after the moment they are collected till the moment they will be analyzed for pesticide residues as well as for their plant origin using molecular methods. Therefore the most promising method of transferring the pollen and bee bread samples from the CSs’ places to the National Coordinators’ Lab, in our case at the Division of Apiculture in Nea Moudania Greece, is to transfer them inside a big box filled with dry ice!
And this is what we did. We travel to the place of 3 out of 4 Greek Citizen Scientists in order to collect the samples they have been collected from their 3 colonies since almost the beginning of May. July is the month for thymus honey ccollection (from Thymus vulgaris mainly, but also from Thymus capitatus, Thymus atticus or Τhymus striatus) in areas near the see but also Castanea honey (from Castanea sativa) collection in the mountains.
Great opportunity to meet the Citizen Scientist, discuss with them and travel around in beautiful places as well as historical places. Because you cannot miss stopping in Thermopiles, where the Leonidas with his 300 Spartans and other 700 Thespieis, faced the Persian huge army at 480 BC!
So here we were, almost early evening, when the 2nd sample set arrived to meet the samples already in the box with the dry ice, secure.
Then we enjoyed a relaxing walk in the port of Volos a beautiful city in Magnesia region, from where the ancient Jason started his trip with ‘Argo’, but more on this in the next post.
