Honey harvest, cloudy honey

[DanBee]

Thanks for all the answers everyone!
We had a pollen recognition workshop at our association last year and I was really keen to give it a go but the 'expert' said that it is very difficult to identify the different pollens and it takes experience and experts such as the forensic scientists, It was a good workshop and showed as all the different shapes of the various pollens, but they have to be stained to show up!

Don't be put off; it is true that it takes a lot of experience to narrow down to a precise plant, but the characteristics of plant families are easy to differentiate and recognise. Using this in conjunction with a working knowledge of what is in flower near you during the various honey flows should allow you to narrow down from easily-recognisable family to "likely candidate".

It is also true that the more preparation beforehand, the better the results. However, you don't need to stain to see the pollen grains, but it does help

If you ever get the chance to listen to Dr. Michael Keith-Lucas, take it. He's a forensic pathologist who specialises in pollen and periodically gives beekeeping associations a very interesting lecture on the subject.

 

[alldigging]

http://www.saps.org.uk/library/pollen-image-library

That's got pictures of pollens....

 

[Elaine]

It also helps if you build up your own reference library of slides of what is around you. The staining process is very easy - everything that you need is easily available from Brunels (and probably all sorts of other places too)

 

[louiseww]

I seem to recall from the workshop that there was a dvd available on pollen recognition and Northern Bee Books sell it (hope me memory is serving me well here as it was more than a year ago! )