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From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Tue, 29 Jul 2003 07:39:42 -0400
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Peter said:

> I was asked the other day about the colour of lavender pollen...
> Pollen looks to be orange-yellow, but someone suggested that
> the loads are a sort of brick red...

Mother has a large patch of lavender along her front walk, and
father keeps a half-dozen hives within 500 yards.

The blooms have very tiny spots of orange pollen, but no bees seen
working the lavender (while hearing the views of a chorus of trustees
on a church addition project that appears to require a consulting
engineer, an auditor, a team of lawyers, and a whip) had ANY sort of
pollen load, not even one in the making.

I have a "Pantone" color chip book that a printer gave me (a rainbow
you can carry in your back pocket!) that I use for pollen color-matching.
The color, for the record, was between Pantone 180 and 167, so the "orange"
could match some kinds of brick.  You can get a rough idea of what I saw
by looking at "167C" and "180C" on your screen here:
http://www.grafiker-bonath.de/PDF%20Links/pantone.pdf

Lavender does not have much pollen per bloom at all, so I can't
imagine this plant as a first choice of pollen source for bees
with easier pickings.

And sorry, I have no idea what specific kind of lavender is being grown.
Mother reads seed catalogs as if they were mystery novels, and goes
through greenhouses like General Sherman went through Georgia, so
there is no way to know from where she sourced these plants.

                        jim

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