Pollen Collecting

Slowly, the pollen collection I am trying to build is increasing, and yesterday I started to collect samples off mite boards. I pick out clumps, and then separate them by color. That's what  I think my pollen collecting mentor, Russ Crutcher, said he does when he purchases pollen from other countries.

But its hard to know if some of the samples, even if the same color, might not be multiple kinds of plants, and I won't know until I get these mounted and under a microscope (and even then, given my lack of skill here, I might not know). For example, there seems to be a lot of grey pollen (upper right). Which at first I assumed was all the same plant, but then I noticed that it actually has a wide range, from light gray to almost black.  So I separated them. Yellow pollens are the most common, and have lots of shades,  some obviously the same, but others so close its hard to know. Its a fine line and will be interesting to see how they look under the scope.

I do notice that they come in different shapes. For example, in the image below, the lowest samples come in big clumps- consistently- while most of the others are a third the size, and sometimes even smaller- a speck or two. I don't know if this shape has something to do with the amount available, or if it gets packed differently by species, or even if what I am seeing is not coming off the pollen baskets, but dropping through the screen for other reasons- like its being cleaned out and pulled out of cells.

Here's a half hour's worth of picking through boards and pulling out clumps. I don't have a entrance pollen collector, which might be a good idea to get clean samples- and easier to date (these could have been dropped anytime in the last few months.).

Then I put a number next to each sample, which will be the number of the vial it goes into. I use that number to refer to it in a lab notebook, so I can recall later the source and collection date.

Here is the setup for now- a notebook for writing where each sample came from, tweezers for moving them around (careful to clean each time), and glass vials with alcohol and a number painted on top (I use a queen marking pen). The boxes are .45 caliber Caseguard ammo boxes (recommended by Russ), and work great- very solid and easy to carry,

And entirely unrelated, my front door, with my sleeping cat. He stays away from the hives-  got stung once on the head and it swelled up bad- but I doubt it will happen again.  He makes a big circle around them. The plant on the house is mostly Boston Ivy, which seems to be a real bee favorite when it flowers later. Also, unfortunately, a rat favorite, when it has berries. Which in turn, is a cat favorite. So its sort of a full circle. I have yet to collect pollen from it....