Beekeepers Pollen Gallery
Every flowering plant produces different sizes, shapes and colour of pollen. This page is a collection of pollen photographs, either taken from known plants (i.e. the pollen was collected from the flower of that plant) or taken from dropped bee pollen loads – those are identified as they have a photo of the bee pollen load rather than of the plant – crucially they may not be correctly identified, I’m not that skilled and may have got it wrong – be warned!.
The gallery will grow over time. All photographs and images copyright Read Apiaries 2025.
Equipment used: Zenith ML2000 trinocular compound microscope. It’s an old microscope and I had to 3D print my own phototube (openSCAD design can be found here) and acquire a x0.3 and x0.5 reducing lens to use with an ImagingSource (c) 1/4 inch size sensor.
Photo’s below are at x100, x400 or x1000 magnification (see photo label). Pollen size measured at x400, with the size marker added to the photo. Basic Fushil is used to stain the pollen on the slide so that it’s exine (outer layer) structure is visible, i.e. the pollen grain photos don’t represent the colour of the pollen as seen on the flower or the bee.
Gorse (Ulex europaeus)
Collected 9/2/25. Orange Brown Pollen
Crocus
Collected 6/2/25. Orange Pollen
Hazel (Corylus Avellana)
Collected 6/2/25. Known to to be a very consistent size. Yellow Pollen
Viburnum Lantana
Collected 6/2/25. Yellow Pollen
Wild Cherry (Prunus Avium)
Collected 9/3/25. Light Brown Pollen
Daffodil (Narcissus)
Collected 1/4/25. Boat shaped with one furrow. Yellow Pollen.
Dandelion (Taraxacum)
Collected 3/4/25. Orange Pollen.
Forsythia
Collected 10/4/25
Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa)
Collected 11/3/26. Pollen is red/brown
Cherry (Prunus Avium)
Collected 18/3/26. Pollen a dark brown -yellow
Grey Willow (Salix Cinerea – possibly)
Collected 18/3/26. Pollen bright yellow
Balsam (Impatiens Glandulifera)
Collected 18/08/26. Pollen orange. 25um. Some reference sites have pollen as orange/yellow, others as the often mentioned white-grey. It’s possible that what I collected was Orange Balsam (Impatiens Capensis).
Mint Family (possibly Water Mint – Mentha Aquatica)
Collected 18/08/26. Pollen purple. 17um. This was the end of a very very dry summer – the bees were struggling for any pollen, and so it’s likely a nearby river was being used as a source of pollen – with plants that had ready access to water.
