masterBK
Queen Bee
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2009
- Messages
- 2,361
- Reaction score
- 545
- Location
- S Yorkshire
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- wintering 23
Most of the pollen in honey comes from pollen that drops etc from the anthers into the nectaries rather than from pollen brought back to the hive in the corbiculi. One way pollen from wind pollinated flowers ends up in honey is by way of honeydew excreted by aphids and scale insects and collected by honeybees. Honeydew contains all sorts of stuff that gets stuck in the sticky stuff including fungal spores, algae strands, oxalate crystals, sooty particles as well as pollen from grasses and wind pollinated trees. Most honey samples will have some honeydew in them even if in small amounts.The stuff is everywhere. They are bound to collect particles that have settled in flowers by mistake