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Honeybees are industrious little creatures, they will forage to collect pollen from a certain preferred flower, sometimes traveling quite far in search for it. The pollen grains are caught in the little branched hairs they have in their hind legs. The bee moistens the pollen with nectar and some honey, which has been regurgitated specially for this purpose, and proceeds to compact the whole thing into a tiny pollen pellet. This pellet (which is usually yellow but can be red, orange or purplish depending on the color of the flower it came from), will be carried off to the hive.
By means of a special contraption placed at the entrance of the hive, about 50% of the pollen pellets will be collected at "pollen harvest time". What does get in will be stored exclusively to feed honeybee larvae and for the worker bees who produce royal jelly. This bee pollen is called "beebread" and it is understandably difficult to obtain without damaging or depleting the food source of the nest.
Bee collected pollen contains 8 flavoniods, at least 11 carotenoids, vitamins C, E, all the Bs, all free amino acids, minerals, more than 100 enzymes and several growth regulators.
It is essential to obtain bee pollen (and all bee products) only from small, trustworthy suppliers. Believe me, you don't even want to know what goes on in large scale industrialized honey and bee pollen production.
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