Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
tire frames will be filled with this multicolored food. Stored pollen fills only a part of a
cell and is covered with honey for preservation and later use.
Every plant's pollen is distinct in shape, markings, color, and nutritional value. This is
sweet clover pollen, greatly magnified.
Pollen loads are taken into the hive by the forager, who then puts her hind section into
an empty cell near the broodnest or one partially full of pollen, and kicks off the pol-
len loads (often called pellets in beekeeping literature). The cells are left partially full;
later honey will be added on top as a preservative.
When pollen is abundant, a colony will often store nearly entire frames of it. An overwin-
tering colony can use two to three full frames of pollen to feed brood in the spring when
brood-rearing starts, before pollen-bearing plants are blooming.
Propolis
Honey bee foragers collect nectar, pollen, water, and propolis—a wonderfully
mysterious substance. Most plants have evolved some form of self-protection from
microbial, insect, or even animal predation. Thorns, stinging hairs, bitter flavor,
and poisons all are used by plants to thwart being eaten. A technique used by some
species is the exuding of a sticky, microbially active resinous substance that covers
leaf or flower buds while they are developing to protect them during this tender
stage. Other plants secrete resinous substances around wounds for the same pro-
tection.
Bee foragers collect this substance by scraping it off buds or wounds with their
mandibles and packing it away in their pollen baskets. Because freshly collected
propolis is sticky, other bees help remove the mass when the forager returns to the
hive.
