Once you know how to do it, taking some excess pollen from a few of your hives is a good way to move beyond just harvesting honey.
Pollen is collected by bees who brush it off their fuzzy bodies and pack it into two spiky areas on their hind legs, moistened with nectar to make little balls. It’s used to produce brood food for young larvae, and is also fed with some nectar to older larvae. Pollen contains mainly protein and minerals, and a small amount of fat.
As beekeepers, a device called a pollen trap lets us take some of those pollen balls the worker bees bring into the hive, so we can use the pollen ourselves or sell it to others who want naturally collected pollen. Traps all work using the same principle: There is some kind of screen or narrow area the bees must work their way through, and as they squeeze through some pollen is knocked off during their passage into the brood boxes. This pollen falls to a protected tray below, where the beekeeper can collect it. Good pollen traps don’t strip all the pollen off the bees’ legs, just around 40%. This leaves the bees some pollen to use and store for future brood rearing.
Which hives get the pollen traps?
It’s normal to find that a few hives in the apiary are sort of slowpokes, a few are amazing, and most of them are middle-of-the-road. For harvesting pollen, it’s best to choose your strongest few hives.
When is the best time to harvest pollen?
There are good and bad times of year to harvest pollen. We don’t want to take away pollen from those baby bees when the hive is trying its hardest to grow - between winter and mid-summer. It’s better to install the trap on your hive after mid-summer because, at that time, the bees are slowing brood production anyway. Also, remember that a queen can’t get through a pollen trap, so using it during swarm season is a bad idea. For our area in upstate New York, August and September are the ideal months for pollen trapping. Removing the traps before the last flowers are finished blooming lets the bees keep 100% of the year’s last incoming pollen. You should ask other beekeepers in your region if they trap pollen at a different time of year, since your bees may be collecting "excess" pollen at a different time of year.
Different kinds of trap for different beekeepers
The Anatomic Pollen Trap mounts at the front of the hive hung on two screws. The pollen catch box has a little roof to keep rain out. It collects a moderate amount of pollen, and will allow you to easily trap small batches of pollen from your hive.
The Sundance Pollen Trap line comes in different designs. The trap can mount below the lowest brood chamber on the bottom board, or at the top of the hive just under the covers. Another variable is the location of the drawer that lets you access the pollen: The drawer access is at the hive’s back or side depending on which trap you get. (Usually, only beekeepers who keep hives on pallets choose the side-drawer style.)
While it is more difficult to install a bottom-mount Sundance trap, it’s most logical to have the trap right below the brood since the brood at the bottom of the hive are the bees' target with the pollen they’re collecting. The scent of brood right above the workers encourages them to work their way through the screens of the pollen trap and up into the hive. If you use a top-mounted Sundance trap after your supers are off, the strong brood smell just below the trap acts the same way. A top-mounted trap above numerous supers doesn’t work that well.
How will the bees react to a pollen trap?
With any style of pollen trap, the bees will need to get used to the slower way of getting through the screens in the first few days after the trap is installed. This can cause bee traffic to jam up at the entrance. If they can figure out any other way to enter the hive, they will, because it will be easier than using the pollen trap entry. Make sure that any other entry points are securely shut and, after 2-3 days, everything will settle down. At first, very little pollen will appear in the drawer but after the first week, you may get a half cup or more every day.
Concluding your pollen harvest
After a period of 4 weeks or so, you can adjust the "door" of the bottom-mount Sundance pollen trap or the Anatomic trap so bees can enter directly into the brood box, bypassing the trap. You’ll then remove the trap later in the fall, as part of your winter prep. If you’re using a top-mount Sundance Trap, just remove it when you’re done collecting pollen after a few weeks.
[DTP comment on above paragraph: Why leave the pollen trap on the bottom of the hive? Because it's annoying to get down to the bottom of the hive? Or because there's a reason to leave it in place. Also, are there circumstances in which people will collect pollen for a week, then switch the door and stop collecting for a week, then switch the door again and collect again, etc.? If so, we need to describe that pattern too.]
Remember that you cannot harvest pollen from your hives for months on end! It’s important to let the bees use and store some of their pollen, and you don’t want to weaken a strong hive by taking too much. If you must continue collecting pollen, consider switching which hive has the trap installed. By rotating from one strong hive to the next, you may be able to extend your pollen-collection season without hitting any one hive too hard.
How do I process this pollen?
To avoid complications, pollen must be taken from the trap daily. The pollen is very attractive to ants, wax moths, and small hive beetle larvae. Also, the slightly moist, nutrient-rich pollen just begs for mold to grow. For these reasons, go get your pollen every single day and freeze it in large zip-closure bags. Pests and their eggs will be killed, and mold will be prevented. Flavor is also preserved, and that’s important too. Don’t keep the bag open or otherwise dry your pollen, or the flavor will go downhill. Press a little thawed pollen on the palm of your hand. It should stick together. Taste it. It should have a tangy but also nutty taste. Dry pollen tastes like sawdust and is very gritty. Make sure you’re preserving your pollen without drying it out.
When that bag in your freezer has accumulated pollen for a while, it is necessary to go through and remove any small bits of non-pollen that fell into the drawer as you collected your daily pollen haul. One way to deal with a relatively small amount of pollen, like 5-10 pounds, is to pour a cup or so of frozen pollen onto a white paper. Then use tweezers to get any dead ants, small hive beetle larvae, small pieces of plant material, bee parts, etc. If you are going into this on a larger scale, you might consider a pollen cleaner that blows the pollen and the impurities across the mouth of a large catch box. Pollen is heavier and falls in, but the other bits are blown across the opening and away.
A nice detail about pollen is that it weighs just about half of what honey weighs. This means a 16 oz. classic honey jar will hold 8 oz. pollen, if you fill it to the top. It’s good to fill that high, because pollen settles over time and it looks odd later to have a jar that seems underfilled.
After it’s jarred up, it’s important to keep your pollen refrigerated because mold still is possible. A label that has your contact information, the net weight, says "Bee Pollen," and explains to keep it refrigerated covers all the bases.
Sell that pollen!
Health food stores may want to receive pollen in large bags, which is easier on the producer (you!). They then repackage it in their own containers. You might visit a store in your area to see what pollen sells for in various-size jars. Perhaps they’ll become your pollen customer, or perhaps you’ll just consider their pricing when you price your own jars.
When selling pollen, make no health claims! Sometimes a potential customer will ask about pollen for their allergies or other ailments. If they want to buy pollen (or unfiltered honey, which contains tiny amounts of pollen) and they believe the product will help in some way, it’s their business. Whether the health benefits that some people claim from eating local bee-collected pollen are the placebo effect or real, it’s not up to you to decide what the truth is.
You can get yourself in trouble if you make "medicinal" claims about your pollen that aren’t supported by science, so we recommend keeping your foot out of your mouth and not discussing it at all! Don’t agree or disagree, just smile and sell the product. Sometimes a pollen fan just wants more non-animal protein, or the special taste or color that pollen will add to dishes. Pollen sprinkled over a salad or charcuterie board brings an exciting taste and look to a dinner party and many customers are happy to get tasty local pollen from their local beekeeper.
If you liked learning about different products you can get from your hives, check out our article all about the different ways to earn money from your hives.
