A honey bee colony’s ability to grow and develop is dependent on adequate nutrition. Bees collect pollen from flowers as a source of protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals. The crude protein content of corn pollen is considered low, around 15%; however, bees frequently visit the male flowers of the tassels for pollen. In this study,…
Abstract A diverse supply of pollen is an important factor for honey bee health, but information about the pollen diversity available to colonies at the landscape scale is largely missing. In this COLOSS study, beekeeper citizen scientists sampled and analyzed the diversity of pollen collected by honey bee colonies. As a simple measure of diversity,…
Dear COLOSS Colleagues: Dr. Simone Tosi of the University of Turin, Dr. Harmen Hendriksma of the Julius Kühn-Institut, and I are co-editing a Research Topic in the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems on the topic: Pollen as Food for Bees: Diversity, Nutrition, and Contamination. This Research Topic was inspired by meetings of the COLOSS…