BBKA Forum

British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • Black pollen

  • This discussion forum covers pollen, honeybee anatomy & biology.
This discussion forum covers pollen, honeybee anatomy & biology.
 #450  by Jim Norfolk
 30 Aug 2018, 10:13
Getting a lot of black/very dark brown pollen coming in. Any ideas?
 #457  by Jim Norfolk
 30 Aug 2018, 13:58
Trying to insert image showing the pollen in cells, but am getting "file too large". What is the file limit? the file is 2.3 MB.
 #478  by Jim Norfolk
 01 Sep 2018, 18:50
Black pollen turns out to be poppy. I was out walking the dog when I passed an area of late flowering poppies with bees loading up with black pollen.
 #483  by AdamD
 02 Sep 2018, 10:00
I had assumed poppy - or would have done at a different time of year.
I currently have bright yellow and bright orange pollen coming in. And some bees have a little stripe of pollen on their heads - Himalayan Balsam?
 #490  by WalnutTreeBees
 02 Sep 2018, 20:13
AdamD wrote:
02 Sep 2018, 10:00
I had assumed poppy - or would have done at a different time of year.
I currently have bright yellow and bright orange pollen coming in. And some bees have a little stripe of pollen on their heads - Himalayan Balsam?
Himalayan Balsam does leave a stripe but it's creamy white when I've seen it. Very noticeable too - all the way down the thorax. Orange/yellow pollen on the head may well be from Common Toadflax (Linaria vulgaris).
 #7029  by NigelP
 12 May 2020, 11:49
AdamD wrote:
02 Sep 2018, 10:00
I had assumed poppy - or would have done at a different time of year.
I currently have bright yellow and bright orange pollen coming in. And some bees have a little stripe of pollen on their heads - Himalayan Balsam?
If it's a little yellow dot on their foreheads likely to be OSR.
Lots of mine currently have this and OSR is but 2 fields away.