Could this be pollen from the laurel bush? It’s been blooming since Jan. 22. I know that you can’t tell by color alone, but at this time I don’t have the microscope or capability to properly identify pollen.
This is the first year I’ve had bees into winter. I was curious about all the types of pollen showing up on the bees entering the hive. I was sure some of it was gorse since we seem to have so much of it growing thanks to Lord Bennett of Ireland.
I made a 9 minute movie showing the bees on different types of flowers and Shigeo of the local bee association demonstrates how to transplant an Echium. I realize that some people can’t spare the time, so I’m offering ‘screen saves,’ as well.
Laurel blooming by Bonnie’s house
Bee on laurel, tannish-colored pollen…January 22, 2013
Bees on rosemary, at City Hall, February 8, 2013
Willow catkins blooming near our hives…sun comes out…bees love it. February 8,2013
Gorse pollen is orange…I had been hoping it was the yellow pollen I had seen going into the hive. February 13, 2013
The video shows this bee in slow motion working the pollen back to it’s pollen sac. I didn’t see it at first until a more experience bee keeper showed me. February 13, 2013
Bee on heather, 2-14-13, right up the street from Joe and Karen’s house.
Bee on acacia, 2-15-13…Shigeo showed me this place to get some video. By the time we got to it, the bees were returning to home so I only got a short clip of it.
Shigeo shows how to transplant an Echium Tree.
Echium for 2013…I’m hoping this plant will shoot up 10 feet (3 m) starting about April or May. The tarp protects against freezing weather.
These are the plants that Shigeo demonstrated in the video, how to transplant. They are my hope for 2014
We planted this echium in late October 2011. It just stood still for several months. About April or May we noticed it had grown to about 10 feet. The bees worked it for 3 solid months.
The video shows the bees in action on the flowers. I used the Canon SX-50 (50x optical zoom) on the laurel as well as the willow catkins. My little pocket camera, a Sanyo Xacti performed admirably for the rest of the close ups…I love the ‘super macro’ feature.
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
Talk gently to your bees. Watch video. And then watch video of Tessa, dog with hydrocephalus learns to walk.
Fantastic pics Pat and such an interesting subject, I’ll come back for the video because I know it will be as fascinating as your others. I’m warming to bees more and more and hope to keep some one day.
Eddy, I know you have a lot on your plate right now, what with getting water and electricity to your house, finishing the inside, getting your crops in and livestock started. The bees can wait a year or two. 🙂
What a fantastic range of forage options your bees have. It would be good to have a look at some pollen samples under the microscope and see what forage predominantly influences the flavour of your honey. Fascinating post, thanks.
The bee club knows a man who got his Ph.D in pollen identification…there’s a fancy name for that which I don’t know, but he’s interested in lending his expertise with us laymen. Ought to be interesting.
Beautiful, accurate photography! I’m learning a lot by watching them up close.
I probably mentioned this before, but when the foragers find a flower full of nectar they leave a sign on the petal saying “You HAVE to try this one. It’s loaded with sweet stuff.” When other foragers come by they don’t have to spend energy hunting for a great flower. The bee who takes the last nectar
leaves a sign on an opposite petal saying “Forget it. Nothing here.”
when the flower fills up with nectar again the Forget it sign fades and the You Have to try it sign revives. I think the signs are made of pheromones.
Don’t know if they leave signs for pollen.
That’s fascinating about the pheramone signatures. I’m trying to learn more about the pollen gathering. I find it hard to believe it’s just a by-product of the nectar harvesting, but I’ve never taken biology, so I don’t know if the bees search purposely for pollen sans nectar or not. Maybe that’s the reason why bees don’t like to pollinate cranberries…no nectar. I’m told beekeepers must have sugar water feeders available when their bees are in the bogs.
The bees do search for pollen alone too. I learnt from one of my bee books that two studies of bee collection habits found that about 58% of bees collect nectar only, 25% pollen only and 17% both nectar and pollen.