The last one.

And so, the final field trip of my undergraduate tenure in Sydney University has come and gone. I didn't even realise it until I was on Platform 7 of Central Station, and by then it was too late. Argh..should've taken more pictures, done more crazy things, gone all out on the alcohol and just savoured the aftermath.

Nontheless, it was still an amazing field trip. Apart from those crazy one-day field trips i had for Geology back in first year (which seems so fucking long ago, now that i think about it), i've gotta say that all my other field trips have been really memorable-enjoyable-incredible-amazingly-fun-unforgettable *insert preferred adjective/verb here* and i've not regretted going on a single one.

This time around, we were back at Warrah again, but instead of frolicking on the rock platform, we went bush (it's not a grammatical mistake, i have a reputation to uphold) !! our aim was to catch bees for genetic analysis. Really fun...i never knew bees could be caught using such unconventional methods...i initially had an image of myself in a stark white suit with a masked helmet over my head holding on to a can of smoke.




For the mother: This is Ceiwen. Kay-wen.


The view at the top of the Crommelin Native Arboretum. Mighty impressive, ey?



So, we were introduced to this new way of catching bees. What you need is:
(1) a pooter i.e. the jar-like thing i have in my hands in the above picture.

So, the pooter has two straws extending from the bottom out to the top; one longer than the other. The base of the shorter straw has a wire meshing over it. When you are ready to catch bees, you grab your pooter and sneak up slowly and silently on a honeybee. Then, you position the end of the longer straw behind it and suck on the shorter straw. By sheer force of vacuum, the bee will get sucked in and voila! You have your bee trapped in the container!

Genius.

And it makes a very satisfactory thunk sound when it hits the bottom of the container too. wonderful. my tally was 18 bees.


More pooting in action! You can see a couple of bees in my container already...i was on a roll by then.



We killed them. Death by liquid nitrogen. Frozen nice and crispy.



We were also allowed to play with commercial honeybees cultivated in situ at the research station, and Ben (my lecturer carrying the bee comb) gave us a taste of fresh honey! And by fresh, i mean FRESH. Like..fresh out of the bees' behind kinda fresh. It was still warm! Hands-down the yummiest honey i've ever eaten...by far!


Yea...those marks were made by my finger...too yummy la.


Some trip-the-light-fantastic action by Mr. Sing, entertainer of the night.

What a brilliant end.