The quality of pollen is determined by plant diversity, protein content, moisture content and freedom from contamination.

What the beekeeper can assess

• Colour variety: Many different colours means many different plants — the best sign there is
• Dryness: A granule should break, not deform, under pressure
• Purity: Bee parts, wax fragments and debris
• Smell: Musty means mould

Colour variety is the most useful indicator. Pollen from one source gives an incomplete protein package; mixed pollen is worth more, to the bees and to the customer.

What a laboratory determines

• Protein content
• Moisture content
• Botanical composition: Which plants and in what proportion
• Microbiological purity
• Pesticide residues

The moisture point

This is the most decisive for shelf life. Insufficiently dried pollen goes mouldy, and mouldy pollen cannot be sorted.

The spores are through the whole batch; no process repairs that. When in doubt, do not use it.

What no kit can repair

An analysis tells you what is there, not what should have been. It repairs nothing that went wrong at harvest or drying.

What actually determines quality happens before the analysis:

• Emptying the trap daily
• Drying at low temperature, or freezing
• Not harvesting during a treatment period
• Storing airtight, dark and cool

Recording

Note per batch: apiary, period, harvest date and drying method. Without those details no origin claim can be substantiated.