http://www.scirpus.ca/cap/articles/paper017.htm

Pollen can be incorporated into the honey produced in a beehive in a number
of ways. When a honeybee lands on a flower in search of nectar, some of the
flower's pollen is dislodged and falls into the nectar that is sucked up by
the bee and stored in her stomach. At the same time, other pollen grains
often attach themselves to the hairs, legs, antenna, and even the eyes of
visiting bees. Later, some of the pollen that was sucked into her stomach
with the nectar will be regurgitated with the collected nectar and
deposited into open comb cells of the hive. While still in the hive the
same honeybee might groom her body in an effort to remove entangled pollen
on her hairs. During that process pollen can fall into open comb cells or
the pollen can fall onto areas of the hive where other bees may track it
into regions of the hive where unripe honey is still exposed in open comb
cells. Some worker bees also collect pollen for the hive. The smooth,
slightly concave, outer surfaces of the hind tibia in worker bees are
fringed with long hairs that curve over the tibia surface to form a hollow
area. This hollow area is called the "pollen basket" or orbicular. The
worker bees collect pollen with their front and middle legs and then
deposit it in their cubicula (Snodgrass and Erickson 1992). In the process
of depositing collected pollen into special comb cells some of it can fall
into the hive or into open honeycombs. It is also noted that occasionally
worker bees might add pollen to the nectar they are transforming into
honey.

Airborne pollen is another potential source of pollen in honey. Many types
of airborne pollen produced mostly by wind-pollinated plants that are not
usually visited by honeybees can enter a hive on wind currents. These
airborne pollen grains are usually few in number, when compared to the
pollen carried into the hive by worker bees, nevertheless, those pollen
types regularly enter a hive on air currents and can settle out in areas
where open comb cells are being filled with nectar. Sometimes airborne
pollen is deposited into ripened honey when it is being removed from a hive
by the beekeeper. Although the pollen rain for various regions consists
mainly of airborne pollen, and those data are often used in forensics,
archaeology, and ecology to identify a specific geographic region, those
pollen data are not always as useful in melissopalynology because they
generally form only a minor (?) fraction of the total pollen spectrum found
in a honey sample.

Pollen is an essential tool in the analyses of honey. Taxa of pollen are
used to indicate the floral nectar sources utilized by bees to produce
honey (Lieux 1975, 1977, 1978; Moar 1985; Louveaux *et al.* 1970; Sawyer
1988; Van der Ham *et al*. 1999). Thus, the relative pollen frequency is
often used to verify and label a honey sample as to the major and minor
nectar sources. This information has important commercial value because
honey made from some plants commands a premium price (i.e., sourwood,
tupelo, buckwheat, or citrus honey). Even non-premium grades of honey
require certain types of verification because they must be correctly
labeled before being marketed. Identifying and quantifying the pollen in
honey samples is one of the best ways to determine the range of nectar
types used to produce a honey, and therefore label it correctly based on
actual foraging resources. Another reason that pollen analyses of honey are
often required is to identify the geographical source of origin. The
combination of wind and insect-pollinated taxa found in a honey sample will
often produce a pollen spectrum that is unique for the specific
geographical region where it was produced. Because of trade agreements,
import tariffs, and legal trade restrictions, most of the leading
honey-producing nations of the world require accurate labeling of honey
before it can be sold. This is especially true for the EEU that has had
strict labeling regulations for honey products since 1974 (EEU 2001).





Juanse Barros J.
APIZUR S.A.
Carrera 695
Gorbea - CHILE
+56-45-271693
08-3613310
http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/
[log in to unmask]

             ***********************************************
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