We only did a weekly sampling for one year and archived reference samples on slides to use later. 
So we took samples when corn was tasseling for sure. When we did find corn pollen it was only 
10-15% of the pollen sample which showed up over a period of a couple of weeks.. 

I agree with Bob that corn pollen is sticky, gets stuck in the drawer screen and is messy.  Over the 
years we have a pretty good idea by color and time on the calendar what pollen is coming in and 
can use the scope to verify new sources. We trap about 1000 pounds of pollen for sale each year. 
We have so much wetland area that when the flat land sources dry up Cattail, Jewel Weed and 
Purple Loosetrife kick in and so does goldenrod in early Aug. 

While we don't see much corn pollen here as we have such a wide variety of tree, shrub , wetland 
flowers and prairie pollen sources it could be a different story elsewhere. 

I have an idea of 2 commercial beeks who may have contacted Jerry B with CCD symptoms, as I 
have expressed here before they do have home addresses here in MN and the do keep bees here 
for 4-5 months, I'm not sure that that means we have CCD problem here in the area. 

I also have frequent contact with both Bee supply houses, university people, beeks at bee 
meetings, plus I run into probably 100 hobbyist and sideliner beekeepers (from MN IA, WI) at the 
mpls farmers market during the spring to Nov selling season. There is just not anyone claiming to 
have lost their bees to CCD on any large scale. I would not challenge Jerry's data that he has 
collected I'm just saying the data may not represent what's going on on the ground here. 

Jerrys data is valuable to a point but he has never claimed that it is a statistical sample of the 
whole population of beekeepers in the nation or a region or state. Rather its a sample of  a 
population of people who contacted him so one cannot make any statements about how prevalent 
CCD is in the whole population of beekeepers in our region or state based on his data. Although 
people frequently misuse that data in media articles to extrapolate the data across the board and 
make doomsday statements that leave people believing the sky is falling and bees are going 
extinct etc..  

When a researcher has limited data on a problem like this they could attempt to fill in the holes 
then by talking to many  beekeepers in the area to see if their observations coincide with the data 
collected. I am suggesting they do not at least here where I live although I don't have Jerrys raw 
data either so I'm just a voice in the crowd.  The whole problem with the data is people who have 
no CCD have no incentive to contact him in the way beeks who are seriously affected would so its 
biased. 

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