“Today we will embark on a journey into the importance of pollinator habitats. Guiding us is Dr. Tammy Horn Potter, a leading authority in this field, who will unveil a wealth of intriguing insights about the pivotal role of pollen and pollinators.

On average every single movable frame Hive tends to need about 252 million flowers through the course of a full calendar year.

it’s a good idea to remember that foragers are the older bees and in particular they are they need both pollen and nectar
pollen grains are unique to the flower they help the immune system of an individual honeybee and then of course contribute to the immunity of the colony as well. The other thing that they are shopping for when they leave the hive is nectar. that’s the fuel of the hive honey bee cannot process either pollen or nectar immediately on the flower bumblebees can their digestive system can process it while they are in flight but honeybees have to bring both pollen and nectar back to the hive and process both of those into consumable products.

and so nectar, when it comes back to the hive, is 80 percent water and the bees and the hive have to dehydrate that water and then once it’s dehydrated then it becomes honey which of course is good it can be good for a thousand years and at least in my environment a hive needs approximately 120 pounds of honey to get through the full calendar year and typically they need 30 to 50 pounds of pollen to get through a full calendar year.

pollen evolved longer than 130 million years ago but floral pollens especially are part of a flower’s strategy to reproduction and so pollen is the fingerprint of a flowers hive and so our flower’s DNA if you will and so they can be very different some will be spiky and some will have furrows some will have pores open holes some will have varying layers of xine structure around them to protect them and to protect the DNA inside of it they can be sticky to help the pollen adhere to the body of a bee whether or maybe a hummingbird they can be triangular they can be round as you see here but they are very different.

The study of pollen is called Melissopalynology Honeybees see flowers differently than we see them you’ll hear people in the industry talk about a lot in the beekeeping industry is these floral nectar guides that include petal structure and floral scent like the perfume of a flower the color structure of a flower all of these things are working again it’s part of that flower strategy to attract and lure pollinators so that its DNA can be picked on up by a pollinator and carry it on into the future.”