Pollen vs Bee Bread

[Spear]

Doing a search on the net I see that there seems to be a bit of confusion about bee pollen and bee bread so I decided to start this post and try clearing this up a bit. If I'm wrong please feel free to correct me, I promise not to be offended!

Ok so here goes:
Bee pollen is what is collected from the pollen traps i.e that pollen that is scraped off the bees legs as they enter the hive so it has not been stored in the comb.
Bee bread is the pollen that has been 'processed' by the bees and mixed with their saliva and some nectar/honey and stored in the comb.

A frame of bee bread:

[Billy B]

Makes sense.   Though a quick search on wikipedia turns this up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_pollen

What a horrible entry.   Defining "Bee Pollen" as the bee bread product of honeybees and going on with this:

When the pollen ball is complete, a single female lays an egg on top of the pollen ball, and seals the brood cell.

The reference of which leads to an article about ground nesting bee behavior, not honeybees.

[Dallasbeek]

My understanding is that anyone is free to correct an appalling entry in Wikipedia. 

[HomeSteadDreamer]

I don't have anything but my observation.  I have noticed some cells seem to have pollen as in little balls from their legs in there which will actually fall out if the frame is inverted while other cells (most of the pollen cells) seem to have packed, processed bee bread.  I'm not sure what their process is for changing pollen to bee bread but maybe they wait til they have a certain amount to mix it with nectar?

I do agree you get bee pollen from the traps.

[Dallasbeek]

I'm too new to post a link, but if you Google bee bread and scroll down past Wiki and stuff to Glenn Apiaries, he has a very brief description of how they make bee bread, and yes, pollen is first put more or less loosely in the cell before house bees process and pack it.  Maybe the forager goes back for more or gets fed and takes a break. 

Gary

[Better.to.Bee.than.not]

Yes, bee bread is different from the pollen they bring into the hive, which is also slightly different then plain pollen on the plant. The reason is, bees when they fly create a charge on their bodies, this charge attracts pollen, that pollen gets caught on the bee, and the bee then, cleans itself and gathers the pollen into it's holding/carrying areas. in the process of doing this, they use their saliva, as well as nectar. The bees then fly back to the hive, and once more do the same but put it into storage cells. this also adds more saliva/enzymes/nectar to it. then it also get's packed in and once more adds even more, and changes it some more, not to mention the enzymes and a host of other things, even the moisture in the air, act on it, surely.

[Dallasbeek]

Okay, the next question is what the nurse bees do to the bee bread before feeding it to larvae?  Do adult bees eat bee bread (source of protein for bees) in some form as well?  I know the house bees make some major physiological changes before leaving the hive to become foragers.  Do they then cease eating bee bread?  The changes that take place include giving up some chemicals that start the aging process, as I understand it.

[BeeMaster2]

The pollen the bees collect cannot bee eaten directly by the bees. There is a hard shell on the pollen that makes it indigestable. As said the bees mix the pollen with silava and nectar and put it in a cell. It takes 7 days for the yeast and bacteria to change it from pollen to bee bread. After 7 days it becomes stable and stops changing. This protects it for storage.
The bees use this to feed to the larva thaqt are 6 days old and older. They also eat it and produce royal jelly (similar to a woman producing milk) that they feed to the 3 to 6 day old larvae and the queen.
Jim

[Dallasbeek]

Here's what Randy Oliver said on this topic, from the website Scientific Beekeeping:

"Good nutrition is moot if you can't digest and assimilate the nutrients. Let's first look at food assimilation at the colony level. The end use for pollen is to to build up vitellogenin and other protein levels in the hypopharyngeal glands and fat bodies of bees of the right age, and thus to allow them to produce jelly. For this discussion, let's sort bees into three age groups:

1. Newly emerged "young" bees that are developing their glands, and gorge on pollen.
2. "Mid-aged" nurse bees with developed glands, which can produce jelly to feed to the queen, brood, and foragers. These bees eat enough pollen, if available, to replenish their glands.
3. "Old" forager bees whose glands have atrophied, and who eat little pollen.

Unless the colony has plenty of young and mid-aged bees, feeding pollen will be of little immediate consequence, although it may be stored in the combs for later use. Pollen can only be assimilated well if there is a robust brood nest full of nurse bees and larvae. Brood nest size is limited by the volume that the cluster core can hold at 93°F."

This is a small part of what he wrote on bee nutrition.