With the honey flow about to begin, I am again looking at the pollen my bees are gathering, to see which flowers they are visiting. Here is the biggest problem in pollen identification: I am looking at a pollen pellet smeared onto a microscope slide. I can go to atlases on the internet, but then have to search entry-by-entry to find a photo/diagram that matches my pollen. This is VERY time consuming.
Now, a Beekeeper’s Wife, Linda Lathrop of Laclede County in Missouri, a graduate botanist, has compiled an Excell spread sheet of over 250 pollens, which has been installed on our club website. http://madbees.org/pollen/lathrop-2007.html and http://madbees.org/pollen/lathrop-2007-key.html.
The beauty of her work is that the file is sortable by the pollen characteristics, so I only have to look individually at a few entries, instead of all 250.
In addition to the spreadsheet, there are individual microscope photos of the pollen, some 450 photos in all, which is too much data for our club website to handle. I have these photos on disk and on thumb drive, and will be happy to share them.
Jeanne Hansen <jeanniealabeannie@yahoo.com>
