Best pollen identification books ?

linoleum bonypart · Aug 26, 2015

Any publications worth having
Just saw a bee arrive with strange white fillament/sheet hanging from pollen baskets like they'd exploded funny sight indeed

jenkinsbrynmair · Aug 26, 2015

A colour guide to pollen loads of the honey bee by William Kirk and the updated version of FN Howse's 'Plants For Bees by William Kirk and F N Howse both IBRA publications. Kirk spent ages with the printers ensuring that the colours when printed were correct before letting it go to press

itma · Aug 26, 2015

It is really hard to ID pollen by the colour of the pollen load.
There are some colour charts available. Not IMHO terribly useful though. Too many colours are too similar!

For proper pollen ID, you need a microscope that is going to give you a clear view at 400x magnification.
And only then do you need Rex Sawyer's book 'Pollen Identification for Beekeepers' ...
For microscopy, you can usually collect enough dropped pollen loads from the varroa inspection tray - don't bother with a "pollen trap" at the outset.
// ADDED - Identification with a microscope & Sawyer's book is still very far from easy!

Pollen loads are pretty much sourced from a single plant species.
But the bees mix them together when they pack them into cells.

Thymallus · Aug 26, 2015

Microscopy is definitely the way to go. A green pollen in one area is not necessarily from the same plant as a green pollen from a different area.
I'm trying to build up a local reference base from all the different pollens collected from the plants in my area, so I can identify and be sure which plant if came from. Then turn that to pollen loads....and then go for honey where you find the buggers are sourcing pollens in your area that you didn't even know the plants where present. It's a lot of fun and a lot of frustration for the winter months. Particularly the innocuous round ones of approx the same size.
One of the reasons trading standards are so quick to "check" your heather honey is because heather pollen grains are particularly distinctive (4 stuck together). The rest, they would stuggle with....as do I.