The content of pollen in honey is difficult to measure exactly by weight.  The specific gravity 
of pollen varies quite a bit between species and pollen development.  Pollen overall is 
slightly lighter than honey (values around 1.1-1.3).  

However an average pollen grain (e.g. Clover - Trifolium repens) is around 25 microns 
(0.025 mm) and in commercially extracted and packed (but unfiltered) honey there are 
around 115,000 pollen grains per 10 grams with a Standard Deviation (SD) of 95,000 
(2,400+ records).  The volume of clover pollen as a percentage of the volume of honey can 
therefore be calculated at 0.013% with a range up to 0.046% for 3 SDs (400,000PG/10gms 
honey).

We have observed some honeys with small pollen grains (12 microns) that have been 
extracted with honey looseners which stir up much of the pollen stored in frames (i.e. a 
"contaminant" of extracted honey) with levels up around 3,000,000 PG/10gms and an outlier 
of 8,000,000 PG/10gms.  These would represent 0.038% and 0.100% of the volume 
respectively.  I have to emphasize that the 8,000,000 figure is an absolute outlier that we 
have encountered once only in over 25,000 samples.

A more normal range of values for this honey type (small pollen grains) is 500,000 
PG/10gms with a SD of 300,000 so a corresponding volume of 0.0063% for average (1,500+ 
records) and 0.018% for 3 SDs (1,400,000 PG/10gms). 

Honeys with larger pollen grains (over 40 microns) and hence a higher volume per pollen 
grain tend to have very low levels of pollen in the honey and it is suggested that the bee's 
proventriculus is able to "filter" out much of these larger pollen grains.  i.e. the range of 
values of the volume of pollen in honey above will cover the entire likely range of 
commercially extracted and processed (but as mentioned earlier "unfiltered") honeys.

Honeys extracted by pressing the combs may present a different picture.

Peter Bray
Airborne Honey Ltd.
www.airborne.co.nz


On 23 Jan 2012 Juanse Barros Wrote:

I mean is crazy because under Directive 2001/110/CE, anex II, apartado
3,
the content of unsolubable solids (of which pollen is a part of) can
not be
more than  0,1 g/100 g (0,1%), therefore if honey fullfill that
requirement
it will never have more than  0,9 % of GMO pollen in spite of all
the
pollen being of GMO origin.

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm