> Bob has suggested that maize pollen is not much good.  In fact it is less 
> than useless, but it is not alone in that.  It amazes me that the USA 
> industry has not done the research on their pollens.   The five secrets of 
> beekeeping- pollen, pollen, pollen, young queens, shift on time.

I have been thinking about this lately. The problem seems to be that every 
location and every season is unique, and that therefore, the bulk of the 
interest is in problem pollens, like toxic types.  There is less interest in 
the nutritional value of each specific pollen and the variation in 
nutritional values within each, partly because applying much of that 
knowledge is not easy or simple.

Pollens are unpredictable in timing and quantity and the mix of pollens 
coming in is variable as well.  Pollens also do vary considerably, even for 
one type of plant, due to variations in genotype and phenotype and region, 
climate, soil, weather, etc.

Some pollen work has been done.  Justin Schmidt, among others, did some 
research on pollens, http://tinyurl.com/m5vgmj but the problem has been in 
applying that knowledge.

As a result, the USDA has again started to emphasize nutritional supplements 
because they apply in almost every situation and a re an easy workaround for 
most situations.

The problem is that the work being done with public money has been kept 
secret and proprietary.  Details which should belong to everyone are sold or 
leased to monopolistic marketers, rather than being published freely for use 
by the people who paid for them.

This is an abuse IMO.  This practice runs contrary to what should be 
expected from publicly funded research, and retards the progress of the 
entire industry and prevents other work that could be based on those 
results. 

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