>> So, I guess the next question us that, seeing as most of the pollen bees eat during active brood rearing when pollen is coming in has been recently gathered and not processed, what is so special about bee bread?

> but allen, pollen is processed in the act of gathering it.  if you want unprocessed pollen, i think you will have to collect it from the plant, not trapping it from the bees.:

Good point, and thanks for the references.

I guess the point I am trying to examine is not whether the pollen eaten immediately is processed or unprocessed, but rather the degree.

From everything I have read, the process and digestive additives are not well understood, but it seems to me that a fermentation process is not immediate.  It takes time.

How processed is the incoming pollen by the time it is comsumed?  If the delay is only a matter of hours, I would imagine not much.

I suppose we can assume what we like, but I don't see how adding some sugars and digestive enzymes and microflora at the flower is much different from what the next bees dose when she eats it and digests it in the hive a short time later?  Are these vastly different additives?  Or is digestion, digestion?

We can speculate and eloborate, but Occam's Razor works for me.

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