![]() Leigh Broadhurst, an expert in environmental remediation and trace elements in the environment and food supply, said, “All of the health benefits you’ve ever heard attributed to plant foods-from blueberries to broccoli to garlic-can be contained in a single pollen basket.” Indeed, Broadhurst is right. At this stage, the pollen has been turned into the super nutritious, probiotic staple of the honeybee’s diet, “bee bread.” Pollen for Nutrition, Health, and WellnessĬ. These added ingredients start breaking down and fermenting the pollen, making it digestible for the bees. These house bees further mix the pollen with more saliva (containing enzymes from the bee’s stomach) and nectar. The saliva and a bit of nectar moisten the pollen grains and help them keep together, and the tiny hairs on the bee’s leg help hold the granule in place.īack in the hive, house bees help the foragers unload the pollen into cells of honeycomb. With forelegs moistened with saliva, she combs the pollen that collects on her fuzzy body and pushes it into a tiny cavity on the outside of each hind leg. On each trip from the hive, a forager bee collecting pollen will visit between ten and one hundred flowers, and will make up to twenty trips per day. It takes approximately one million collection trips out of the hive to gather this annual supply.īees collect pollen on separate trips from nectar-collecting excursions, visiting flowers that have the most nutritious and easiest to collect pollens, which can be different from the best flowers for collecting nectar. In one year, a hive of bees consumes about 75 pounds (34 kg) of pollen. Because the queen can lay up to 1,500 eggs a day in the early summer, there can be as many as 30,000 (!) developing larvae requiring protein to grow into bees. Pollen is the source of all protein, fat, vitamins, and trace elements in the honeybee’s diet, and it is fed to both the adult bees in the hive as well as the developing larvae. ![]() Pollen is important for plants, but it’s also crucial for bees. From a distance, the varied colors and textures of the grains blend together, but close up it’s easy to see a wide range of colors. Looking at a collection of pollen granules reminds me of looking closely at sand. It also means that each pollen granule that bees bring back to the hive is uniform in color. This evolutionary adaptation means that bees will bring apple blossom pollen to another apple blossom, where it is needed for pollination, and not a rose, where it will do no good. When forager bees leave the hive to collect pollen, they are very faithful to one type of flower on each visit, never visiting different flowering plants on the same trip. The plants provide nutrient-rich pollen and sweet nectar, and in turn, the bees’ hairy bodies and behaviors efficiently transfer pollen from flower to flower. Certain flowering plants have developed in a way that’s attractive and beneficial to bees in a process of coevolution. ![]() Grains of pollen are a plant’s male sex cells, and wind or insects carry the grains from one flower to another, ensuring genetic diversity. Pollen is a flower’s way of making more flowers. The Benevolent Bee herself, Stephanie Bruneau, is here today to teach us all about how bee pollen is made and why it matters.įor more great information on bees and bee products, you’ve got to check out Stephanie’s fabulous book The Benevolent Bee: Capture the Bounty of the Hive through Science, History, Home Remedies, and Craft. I hear a lot about bee pollen lately as a superfood ingredient and a health supplement, but what exactly is it? And what does it do? Bee pollen has a whole host of amazing health benefits. ![]()
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