Bioquip Products closed its doors after 75 years of operation. Since then, a variety of sites have stepped up to offer alternative products. Indigo Instruments has supplied science & education products online since 1994. We don’t offer a full range of substitutes but what we do is of at least the same quality & at lower cost when bought in quantity. Take a look at some of them below or click on the various links to go to our website for more details & on-line shopping.
Black Enamel/Stainless Steel Insect Mounting Pins
Entosphinx insect pins are privately labelled as the Bioquip brand. They are made in the Czech Republic with high-grade Swedish steel. We carry them because they are the best insect pins on the market; guaranteed to be super sharp & rust-resistant. We also list the Certificate of Chemical Analysis that confirms they are made with 316 Grade stainless steel. They are truly rust resistant unlike those from “you know where”.
Try an Indigo 10 pin x 10 size combo pack before buying in bulk for big savings.
Biology Tools
Our scissors & tweezers/forceps are satin finish and made from medical-grade 420 stainless steel. Our prices, especially you buy in quantity, beat all of our competitors who are selling chrome plated tools. At $28.95US, the Indigo entomology tool kit is a best buy. Use it to dissect or mount just about any kind of insect or arachnid.
6 Piece Entomology Tool Kit with 4 types of forceps & 2 types of scissors. The canvas roll-up tool bag has room for 6 more tools.
Swiss Style vs Swiss Forceps
Some companies advertise “Swiss” forceps when they are actually selling “Swiss” style. For applications such as handling setae or antennae on a microscope slide, you won’t notice the difference. If you are an insect neuroanatomist, the precision of the tips will be immediately obvious. There’s a reason the real thing costs 4X the price of the non-Swiss. A typical wage in Switzerland is $50USD/hour. The average wage in China or Pakistan doing the same work might be 1/20th of that.
I had the opportunity to visit the Dumont plant. They showed me every room that involving the manufacturing process except the last one. That was where they fused the forceps halves together, a proprietary process and where the quality difference manifests itself.
At Indigo Instruments, we carry a line of Swiss style forceps made in Pakistan using 420 medical grade stainless steel. Your students will be happy with ours doing routine lab or field work. Only you know what your research demands are & whether it demands Swiss workmanship.
Beware of companies that advertise “Swiss” forceps. If they cost under $30, they are not made in Switzlerland.
Loupes/Hand Lenses
Our various geology loupes/hand lenses cover the needs of amateurs to expert entomologists. The 5X-5X=10X glass lens plastic frame loupe is a particularly good buy. We have sold well over 20,000 to users in Integrated Pest Management, Agriculture & Horticulture. If your interest is systematics, the 10X 23mm metal loupe doublet may help identify differences in morphology. Use it with a cell phone camera1 to really see the “bee’s knees” and classify accordingly.
Our magnifiers range from simple mini-magnifiers to 30X triplets. Buy what you need for field studies or lab investigation. Ask us about our branding options for promoting your school or organization.
What Some of Our Customers Say in Google Reviews
Keith Uloth:
Ordered insect pinning equipment with no issues. Their website was easy to navigate and the process was quick without any delays or window reloading.
My order was shipped and received quicker than expected. I will order from them again.
Alison Bell:
Ordered a sample pack of insect pins for making pinhole cameras. Wonderful selection and super-fast shipment even in a pandemic. They work really well for the purpose. I use the pin size below the size of the hole I want and have gotten …
Leyla Cardenas:
Online customer here, from overseas. I bought insect pins because they are impossible to get here. Great products, very reliable business, Everything arrived in great condition.
Mary Claire Becker:
I have been using Indigo Instruments entomology pins in my artwork for almost ten years now, and at this point, they have been an integral part of multiple framed works as well as four different large-scale sculptural paper installations. Basically—huge thanks to Indigo Instruments for being a big part of my studio practice!
Laura Sudweeks:
Ordered 100 magnifying glasses for a marketing project. First I started on Amazon, but they only allowed me to order 10 at a time. That was a waste of my time and a complete pain. Some of the orders were canceled because they couldn’t …
Jeanne Paquette:
Indigo Instruments has been a reliable source of affordable hand lenses for beginners in our earth sciences courses at McGill University. We tried other suppliers after coming across the occasional defective items (unavoidable in mass manufacturing). However, Indigo Instruments offers us the best quality:price ratio and attentive service among the many options we tried.
Integrated Pest Management-Insect Pheromones
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a strategy to control pests with little or no use of chemical pesticides. For insects, chemical traps infused with pheromones act as airborne chemical attractants. The unwary male insect “thinks” it’s finding a female mate but finds a death trap instead. The pheromones are species-specific with little or no deleterious effects on desirable insects.
Some of these compounds are listed in the Pherobase along with the insect species that produce it. We tested many with our 3D Molecular Model Builder and all rendered accurately. The example below is is made by a termite and has the chemical formula, C57H98O6. Its chemical (IUPAC) name, (Z,Z)-9,12-octadecadienoic acid, 1,2,3-propanetriyl ester, hints at its complexity and the marvel of evolution that it is.
So, peruse the list. You may be surprised how much organic chemistry you remember & at the diversity of these compounds.
Termite pheromone: (Z,Z)-9,12-octadecadienoic acid, 1,2,3-propanetriyl ester
Indigo Instruments Related Blogs
Here is a collection of blogs that relate to using our insect pins and magnifiers in the pursuit of things entomological.
