Hymenoptera on the wall

[beck]

It's getting cold in New England now, and I finally gave in and just started putting a frame together. I only started collecting in mid September, some of these guys are a little rough...

 


I still have to find a way to jerry-rig the backing because those little metal folds on the back meant to hold it in aren't long enough to get a solid piece of sytofoam in the back for the pins, and I didn't want to cut the pins short for the sake of getting it to fit. So there's no glass and everyone's sticking out pretty far, but it gives it a nice 3D look. Not the best for preservation, but there's no way to build it out into a pseudo shadowbox with what I have lying around at the moment, and they're all pretty rough anyways.

Top to bottom, Left to right (I'm pretty sure):
Bombus impatiens (queen I think? She's huge, like 23 mm from face to end)
Dolichovespula maculata, Polistes fuscatus
Vespula maculifrons, Polistes fuscatus ,Vespula maculifrons
Bombus impatiens (worker), Polistes fuscatus
Bombus impatiens (worker), Apis mellifera

[Paul K]

Nov 12, 2017 21:47:44 GMT beck said:

It's getting cold in New England now, and I finally gave in and just started putting a frame together. I only started collecting in mid September, some of these guys are a little rough...

 


I still have to find a way to jerry-rig the backing because those little metal folds on the back meant to hold it in aren't long enough to get a solid piece of sytofoam in the back for the pins, and I didn't want to cut the pins short for the sake of getting it to fit. So there's no glass and everyone's sticking out pretty far, but it gives it a nice 3D look. Not the best for preservation, but there's no way to build it out into a pseudo shadowbox with what I have lying around at the moment, and they're all pretty rough anyways.

Top to bottom, Left to right (I'm pretty sure):
Bombus impatiens (queen I think? She's huge, like 23 mm from face to end)
Dolichovespula maculata, Polistes fuscatus
Vespula maculifrons, Polistes fuscatus ,Vespula maculifrons
Bombus impatiens (worker), Polistes fuscatus
Bombus impatiens (worker), Apis mellifera

Beck

You should get few display cases if you don’t want to ruin your collection.
I know you are in US but you should look most likely in eastern European market as in N.America there are not too many choices to get nice insect drawers beside Bioquip which produces expensive and very poor quality products.
Also you should add labels to each specimen at least with collecting locality and the date which is very important for scientific purpose.
Good luck

Paul

[beck]

Thanks for the heads up Paul! I do plan on building them out soon into proper shadowboxes (I used to work as a framer; archival methods translate pretty much the same between artwork and specimens) soon, but for the moment, I'm alright with these being at risk until I can get the materials I need. Thought they looked kinda cool sticking out like they are at the moment, so I took some photos, hahah
Info for each specimen is on the back, I know that's not the correct way to do it, but as decoration I prefer it like this.