Pollen and nectar movement through hive

[yes2matt]

A local club member had his honey tested, and I believe the results came back ~50% crepe myrtle.
Here is a person who had his tested with 81% crepe myrtle pollen in the honey. https://austinbeekeeping.com/2010/09/20/pollen-analysis-results/

Crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia spp, usually L. indica in my parts) do not have nectaries; they yield no nectar at all. They have two types of anthers, and give two types of pollen: "feed" pollen and "fertilization" pollen.

I know about the local club member that he keeps Langstroth hives, organizes his management toward honey production (extremely) and is careful about honey quality. I mean he doesn't extract from brood/mixed frames. And when someone in the club meeting where he shared his results asked how that crepe myrtle pollen got into his honey, no-one at the meeting was able to answer in a way that was clear to me.

So now I am wondering how honey/nectar/pollen moves around in a hive, because the way I thought I understood it is inadequate to explain the situation. And google is a giant failure so far.

Is there a good: academic article with bibliography, or lay-persons article which cites academic articles, or chapter in a book, or a whole book devoted to the subject? Help! How does that crepe myrtle pollen get into a honey-producer's honey?

[TheHoneyPump]

The bees will put pollen in the vicinity of wherever the queen goes and wherever they plan or expect to have brood next.  They will also put honey on top of the pollen and cap it.  So what looks like capped honey, could very well be cell(s) that have pollen in the bottom which are topped off with honey.  This can and will occur up the centre column of any of the bottom 3 deep boxes of a langstroth hive.  Whether there is a queen excluder or not.  The qe certainly reduces the amount above it but does not eliminate it.  If one wants very little to no chance of pollen in the honey, which is practically and pragmatically impossible to accomplish, then the only boxes to be extracting are the 4th and above with the qe between the 1st and 2nd box. 
An alternative is to run the extracted honey through fine filtration to remove all pollens.  But then all that is left is sweetwater.

Academic article specific to this?  Not that I've seen or noticed leads on; and I do read ALOT in the off season.

Honey is a mixture of nectar and pollens and the mix is whatever they've been foraging on.  The nectar does not necessarily come from the same source as the pollen.  Some bees are out collecting pollen, others are out gathering nectar.  When they get back to the hive it gets put wherever needed, ultimately all mishmashes together.  Why would they gather pollen from a flower that does not yield nectar?  Likely because pollen and nectar serve different purpose.  Pollen is protein, nutrients, lipids, etc.  It is like their cheeseburger!  Nectar is raw energy, sugars, ... its like their Coca Cola!   Perhaps the crepe myrtle is a very tasty and rich cheeseburger.   ;).      I've been known to buy my burger at Wendy's then drive 10 blocks to McDonalds to get the coke and fries, just sayin'


What I want to know, on the subject of movement of resources through the hive, ;  is if capped honey is not in the optimal place for the wintering nest, why won't they uncap it and move it?  My observations indicates that once the honey is capped, that is where it stays. They seem to be very reluctant to touch it and will suffer it up to and including winter death because of it.  However, if I simply lightly scratch the cappings then within a day they have moved the entire contents of a full frame to a preferred place.  Why is that?

[BeeMaster2]

What THP said x2.
Pollen is all over the bees body and gets mixed in with the nectar during handling.
Jim

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Our crepe myrtle is blooming so I took a photo

[Troutdog]

I have seen them mostly try to keep same pollens and also nectar segrated by type in frames.
Doesn't mean it's a 100 percent but thi is k about it diff er rent pollens and nectar have different bacterium and minerals peptides enzymes etc. Evolution probably found exclusively homogeneous cells were less likely to fester and ferment.
But back to the point they are like the keebler elves at night.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[yes2matt]

Our crepe myrtle is blooming so I took a photo

The yellow anthers clustered in the middle produce "feed" pollen; there are six anthers around the outside which look grey in this pic, they produce "fertilization" pollen.

[yes2matt]

I've been known to buy my burger at Wendy's then drive 10 blocks to McDonalds to get the coke and fries, just sayin'

I didn't think honey bee foragers did this. I thought that they went where they were recruited to go, if to a nectar source then out and back when they're full, and incidental pollen along with. Same with a pollen source. To your example, three people go to Wendy's to get burgers for everybody, while eight people go to McD's to get starches for everybody. And a round dance instead of GPS :)

I thought that when a nectar forager got back, she would hand-off (spit-off?) the mostly raw nectar to a house bee who would go put it where the colony wants it, probably up in a honey super. Then it gets moved around until capped. I thought that a pollen forager would not hand-off, but would go into the hive herself and deposit the pollen in a cell, probably near to the brood nest. Which is why I'm a little confused as to why so much of this particular pollen is in these guys' honey. I know the one producer has supers up to seven feet high when the flow is on.  Maybe the nectar is getting moved a lot more than I imagined. ... which is why I'm looking for some research :)

[Acebird]

Maybe the nectar is getting moved a lot more than I imagined.

Why do you think nectar movement is the reason pollen is in the honey?  I think Jim has the best answer.  All foragers get pollen on them due to a static charge.  All bees are in the hive at night and they don't stand still.  If you worked in a saw mill in the 1940's when they didn't have OSHA you would be covered in sawdust every night.  If you came home and buzzed around the kitchen while cooking your food would have sawdust in it.  I don't think it is any more complicated then that.  The thing is pollen in honey is not a bad thing for the bees so why would they have clean room procedures in the making of honey to keep it out?

[BeeMaster2]

Matt,
This year at BeeFest, watch the bees in my observation hive. You will see the bees with pollen walking around the hive and sometimes they will dance and provide samples to the bees around them and then they will find a cell with pollen in it. They put their hind legs in a cell and push the pollen in the cell from both legs.  A house Bee will use their head to pack the pollen in tight. Later they will add honey to start the conversion from pollen to bee bread.
Jim

[Ben Framed]

We have several crepe myrtles and with a variety of colors. I was watching with anticipation to see how well the bees covered the blooms. So far they have ignored the crepe myrtles here.

[yes2matt]

We have several crepe myrtles and with a variety of colors. I was watching with anticipation to see how well the bees covered the blooms. So far they have ignored the crepe myrtles here.

I don't see them working mine either. The club member's lab test showed that (I think it was) 48% of the pollen in his honey was crepe myrtle. And there were at least 20 other sources in there, from blackberry to poison ivy. So that's a high percentage. His bees are working crepe myrtle somewhere.

[yes2matt]

Maybe the nectar is getting moved a lot more than I imagined.

Why do you think nectar movement is the reason pollen is in the honey?  I think Jim has the best answer.  All foragers get pollen on them due to a static charge.  All bees are in the hive at night and they don't stand still.  If you worked in a saw mill in the 1940's when they didn't have OSHA you would be covered in sawdust every night.  If you came home and buzzed around the kitchen while cooking your food would have sawdust in it.  I don't think it is any more complicated then that.  The thing is pollen in honey is not a bad thing for the bees so why would they have clean room procedures in the making of honey to keep it out?

So what you and Jim are saying is that there is loose pollen moving around inside the hive, not packed into cells? And in that case of course all of the open nectar/honey is exposed to a blend of every sort of pollen. In that case it's not honey being moved, it's just bees moving around inside the hive.  That makes sense. I guess I just thought that they were more tidy about it, and kept it packed into cells.

Somebody send me an observation hive! :)

[Acebird]

Matt the thing to keep in mind is that pollen is invisible unless there is a lot of it clumped together.  The people that are allergic don't see the pollen that gives them a reaction.

[Ben Framed]

https://youtube.com/shorts/_UaQF2UCFkE?feature=share