The aim of this blog is to explain and provide access to our Pollen Identification Gallery.  The gallery is essentially a set of photographs of my collection of pollen reference slides, together with a description of their key features.

Click on the image below or click here to go to the Pollen Gallery.

What is the purpose of this Pollen Identification Gallery ?

I set up this gallery to provide a simple method of identifying pollen by comparing with reference images and looking for distinctive features.

Which pollens are included in the Gallery ?

The aim was to collect pollen reference samples from the following sources: –

• Plants in flower, within foraging range of my bees in rural Northumberland.
• Plants which were representative of the main plant families but were not necessarily growing nearby.
• Specific pollen I wanted to be able to identify. Like Rhododendron and Himalayan Balsam.

So far, I have managed to create a gallery of almost 90 pollen samples.  It is still work in progress and there are a number I would like to add to my collection in future.  However, even this list has helped me to identify and learn the distinctive ones.  It also can give a good indication of at least the family of the more difficult ones.

Why not just use Rex Sawyer’s Key ?

Rex Sawyer’s Pollen Identification for beekeepers book is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand pollen.  It defines the vocabulary for the features of pollen, and establishes the recognised Pollen Identification key.

Our pollen gallery attempts to provide some quality colour images and describe the distinctive features in words.

Summary

This Pollen Identification Gallery is essentially a photographic catalogue of my pollen reference slides.  It provides a way of making a visual comparison and describes distinctive features in words.

Anyone studying for the pollen microscopy part of the BBKA Microscopy module may find this useful.

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This weekend I have been using pollen microscopy to identify the different spring forage being brought into the apiary.  Foraging bees were bringing in several different colours of Pollen.  These ranged from bright orange through bright yellow, to light yellow.  With so much forage available, here in rural Northumberland, I was keen to identify what the foragers were bringing back to the hive.

What approach did I use for Pollen Identification?

The approach I used for Pollen Identification involved:

• Looking to see what was in flower in the surrounding area in significant quantity
• Trying to see which flowers the bees were visiting
• Taking samples of the pollen from these plants
• Recording the colour of the pollen loads arriving on the landing boards
• Making up pollen slides and examining them under the microscope
• Confirming the colour of the pollen load with Rex Sawyers Pollen Identification

The outside photographs in this blog were taken with a Nikon D3200, fitted with a Tamron 18-275 mm lens and a Sigma 105mm macro lens for the close-up shots.  The microscope photos were taken with an apex minigrab camera, fitted into the eyepiece of my Apex Researcher compound microscope.

Identifying Dandelion using Pollen Microscopy

There is a large amount of dandelion in flower.  It is along all of the hedgerows, in open grassland and in the apiary.  It is hated by most gardeners, but the bees love it.

Watching the flowers in the apiary, foragers could be seen with bright orange pollen in their baskets.  The same distinctive colour could also be seen on the landing board of the hive.  The short journey time must have made it very appealing this weekend.

Dandelion pollen is very distinctive.  It’s an easy one to remember for anyone studying for their BBKA Microscopy exam.  It usually has a lot of the yellow oily substance on and around the pollen grains.  The pollen varies in size around 30 um.  It is very roughly round, but it’s surface is made up of very distinctive, jagged, ridges.  These ridges have spines all along them.

Identifying Oil Seed Rape using Pollen Microscopy

The oil seed rape is in flower and the foragers were making a bee-line for it.  It is a favourite of the honey bee but surprisingly was not the only pollen arriving on the landing board.

The Oil Seed Rape pollen measured 38um under the microscope and is oblong in shape.  The pores are not prominent.  The two pictures below show the photos taken through the eyepiece.  The one on the left shows the netted and beaded surface of the pollen grain.  The one on the right shows the section at the equator and the medium thick exine (shell).

Identifying Forget Me Not using pollen microscopy

Forgot Me Not is currently in full flower.  It is hard to imagine that it’s tiny little flowers yield enough to interest bees.  So, it was interesting to watch a patch of it to see how much interest it was generating across different species, including honey bees.

The picture on the left shows a honey bee foraging for nectar, with its proboscis extended into the narrow nectary of the forget me not.  The right-hand side photo shows a species of solitary bee, also working the Forget Me Not.  From Steven Falk’s Field Guide to British Bees, I think this is a Gooden’s nomad bee.

There were also species of fly working the Forget Me Not, including this Bee-Fly on the left and Hover Fly on the right, below.

Forget Me Not pollen is tiny, at about 6um.  It is a very distinctive dumbbell shape.  Rex Sawyers pollen identification guide shows that Forget Me Not pollen is a yellow colour.  There were different shades of yellow pollen going into the hive and the bees were working this flower, but it looked like they were taking nectar and none of the honey bees had pollen in their baskets.

Identifying Black Thorn using Pollen Microscopy

The black thorn in the woods and hedgerows is in flower in the area, in abundance.

Black thorn pollen is round/oblong in shape and is about 48um in size.  The photo on the left shows the thin to medium section of the exine at the equator.  The photo on the right shows the granulated texture of the surface, as well as the three furrow shaped pores which run between the poles.

Identifying Primrose using Pollen Microscopy

Many of the local hedgerows have clumps of primrose nestled under them.  There was little evidence that it is being foraged by honey bees, but I was keen to get a sample of this pollen for my collection, in case it turns up in pollen loads or in honey.

The right-hand photo shows the section at the equator and the medium thickness of the exine.  The left-hand photo shows the pitted textured surface and the round pore apertures.  The aperture pores look like little craters on the surface.

Spring Pollen Microscopy Summary

This weekend there was an abundance of spring forage.  I was keen to take a closer look at the forage that the bees were working and bringing back to the hive, by doing some field photography and pollen microscopy.

It was evident that most of the pollen coming back to the hive was oil seed rape and dandelion.  Smaller quantities of other pollen was being brought back to the hive, and that these included black thorn.

It was fascinating to see the different shapes and colours of the pollens.  Rex Sawyer’s Pollen Identification for Beekeepers was also a great resource for understanding and classifying pollen.

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Went on a mission today to identify the mystery white pollen that my bees were foraging and bringing back to the hives yesterday.  I was on the look out for Hazel but could not find any.  There are a few large mature Yew trees near to the apiary, which are in full bloom and casting great clouds of white pollen in the light breeze.

Shaking a branch of the tree released even thicker dusty white clouds.  I took a small sample of the strange little salt cellar like flowers, which I took home and made up a microscope slide, using the method I learned on the NDB Microscopy Short course.

The Yew pollen varied in size between 25um and 30um.  It is round and has a granular surface.  On most of them apertures are not evident but on one or two there appears to be a small number of pore type apertures.  The intine looks quite thick.

Looking at Rex Sawyer’s Pollen Identification for Beekeepers, everything looks consistent, except he has Yew listed as 5=yellow, rather than 1=white.  If I accept that yellow ranges from a cream colour to almost orange then I’m going to work on the basis this is Yew pollen.

What else did I see the bees foraging on today ?

The snowdrops are still being worked but are coming to an end.  There were a few isolated Christmas Roses (Helleborus) being worked and some small pockets of Crocus.  The Crocus were receiving a lot of attention and would account for some of the orange pollen yesterday.

As I don’t have a Crocus slide in my set, I took a flower home and made up a slide for this too.  The Crocus pollen is large, 160um.  Its round and does not have any distinct apertures, although its surface is pitted.

Summary

I think the mystery creamy white/grey/yellow pollen I saw going in yesterday is from nearby Yew trees.  I’ve been surprised at the range of forage the bees are bringing back to the hive this early in the season and look forward to seeing what they work on as the season progresses.

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