Pollen collection

Andrada, A. C. and Telleria, M. C. (2005). Pollen collected by honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) from south of Calden district (Argentina) Botanical origin and protein content. Grana 44, 115-122. 

Nabors, R. A. (1997). Trapping pollen collection of the honey bee Apis mellifera L. to determine pollen flow periods. Am. Bee J. 137, 215-216. 

Pearson, W. D. and Braiden, V. (1990). Seasonal pollen collection by honey bees from grass/ shrub highlands in Canterbury, New Zealand. /. Apicult. Res. 29, 206-213. 

In recent years pollen collected in traps by beekeepers has been made available as a health food for human consumption. Commercial pollen traps are manufactured to fit inside, above or below the brood chamber, or at the entrance to the hive. Bottom traps presumably are never used to collect pollen intended for human consumption, as these traps collect dead bees and insect parts, notwithstanding the fact that medicated sugar dusts, if used, may fall from the treated frames of the brood nest chamber and possibly cause contamination. We already have demonstrated the stability of oxytetracycline when incorporated into supplemental bee diets that contain pollen (15). 

Present Label Implicitly Applies to Harvested Pollen. For beekeepers who use oxytetracycline for medication, the present label (Table I) is explicit in defining the proper use and precautions that need to be followed when honey is to be harvested and marketed for human consumption. Presumably the label implicitly applies to pollen collected for human consumption as well. This does, however, pose an interesting question - if fresh pollens were collected in pollen traps placed at the hive entrance of medicated colonies before the 4 week restriction elapsed, as stated on the use label for collecting marketable honey, would the oxytetracycline be transferred by the honey bee to the pollen. To answer the question field colonies were medicated by feeding freshly prepared solutions of medicated sugar syrup for several weeks at recommended and twice recommended levels. Immediately at the end of medication, and every 3 to 4 days thereafter, pollen traps were sampled and emptied to trap samples of pollen freshly collected by the foraging bees. 

Figure 10. Extracts of pollen collected by foraging honey bees comparison of fluorescence and absorbance detection modes after HPLC on a CN-bonded polar phase (0.1 p.g carbaryl/20 mg pollen equivalent injected mobile phase methylene chloride/methanol 99.5/0.5)...

Clearly, bee colonies exposed in this test to MMP suffered only about one fourth the damage experienced by the colonies exposed to MPEG. Peak mortality for MPEC-treated plots occurred on the first day and on the second day for the MMP. On the fifth day mortalities were A5, 82, and 207 dead bees for the control, MMP, and an MPEG, respectively. Similarly, the amount of pollen collected from the field treated with the MPEG was about 80% less than the amount collected from the MMP-treated plot. 

Because brassinolide, and probably other brassinosteroids, occurs in pollen, other aspects which may affect plant, insect, and animal physiology will have to be considered in the future. For example, what about the effects of brassinosteroid laced nectar and pollen to foraging birds and insects It will be recalled that the collection of sufficient rape pollen to isolate brassinolide came not from manual collection, but from pollen collected by honeybees (4). That fact leads to at least three thoughts. 

Hive bees are usually poisoned by contaminated nectar and pollen which are collected in the held, brought back and stored in the hive. When the hive bees die, the brood will show signs of neglect or poisoning and many, or aU, immature bees still in the cells may die, especially the larvae which are very sensitive to pesticides. If a colony loses most of its foraging bees, nectar and pollen collection will be drastically reduced, but the population could recover in a few weeks. Conversely, if the foragers and hive bees are lost, the colony may never recover and will perish during the winter. As hive bees are killed, there are fewer bees to tend the brood and a further decline in population results [13]. 

Source Pollen collected by bees or harvested directly from flowers for commercial use. 

Pollen is composed of microspores (male reproductive elements) of seed-bearing plants. Bee pollen refers to pollen collected by bees that is in turn harvested for commercial distribution. 

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