In Issue 32

Dear friends

Bees for Development is dedicate to providing help to beekeepers Within the pages of this edition of Beekeeping & Development you will find your copy of The Pocket Pollen Colour Guide. This Pocket Guide helps beekeeper to identify the pollen types that bees are collecting. The pollen colours are arranged in order according to the appearance of pollen throughout the season The colours are only a guide. within every plant species there are variations in colour. The 68 pollen colours are shown against a coloured background rather than white, since in practice we usually see pollen against the background of the hive or in combs, which are often shades of brown.

This Pocket Guide was produced by Stephen Hardy for beekeepers in the United Kingdom. Obviously the plants bees forage on in the UK are different from those in your country. However. this is the first such Guide that we have seen, and we believe it will be of interest to beekeepers everywhere. You could use it when teaching, to lead discussion of pollen and how bees collect it, and how observation of pollen loads at the hive can help in identifying the plants on which bees are foraging. Perhaps you could modify the guide to your own locality, using the colours shown, but where possible substituting the names of your plants producing pollen of similar colour?

We are very grateful to Stephen Hardy for enabling us to bring you The Pocket Pollen Colour Guide. He has produced it after 15 years of fascination with bees combined with an interest in computers and printing producing very accurate colours in print in this way is a difficult and skilled process.

Nicola Bradbear

Bees for Development

1 Agincourt Street, Monmouth NP25 3DZ, UK Tel: +44 (0)1600 714848 info@beesfordevelopment.org www.beesfordevelopment.org