I know no one knows the answer.  My observation is there is a huge difference in pollen attractiveness.  My wife is an obsessive gardener.  She has several hundred species of trees, shrubs and perennials planted on our property.  Every year I see some flowers that are loaded with pollen that my honey bees totally ignore.  And, I see others that are literally mobbed by bees.  For example in spring when bees are so short on pollen they glean seed dust from bird feeders at times they very seldom land on a daffodil loaded with pollen.  Yet, I do see them on crocus bloom at the same time as the dafs.  One of the plants my wife grows is St Johns wort.  When it is in bloom there is close to one honey bee per open flower from early morning until evening.  So many bees that most have hardly any pollen in their baskets.  This flower has no odor I can detect.  As far as I can tell it yields no nectar.  Yet, the bees go nuts over the stuff.  It is not because they are pollen starved.  We have lots of things in bloom and I see a variety of pollen coming into the hives based on different colors.

Does this attractiveness tell us anything at all about the food value of the pollen?  Does it say that bees on this pollen will raise more brood?  If we could figure out what made this pollen attractive would it help the performance of pollen subs if the attractive component was added?  All in all it seems to me we know very little about bees and pollen other than they need a variety of pollen.  This should be a fertile area for some of our academics to do some research.

Dick

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