I'm not sure. Some minerals, maybe?
I do know that not all pollen is equal. At a bee meeting, the lecturer told us that early blooming trees, like maples, had what the bees were looking for. Other trees' pollen was eaten only in case of extreme emergency and had as much nutrition for honeybees as sawdust would have for us.
Trees can have as much forage for bees as an acre of wildflowers. For urban beekeepers, a flowering tree is a huge asset.
Might be fun to note that bees also eat honey. It's not just for our tea and toast!
Apis mellifera, the honey bee, has been bred like modern chickens to create excess of what they need so we can steal from them without killing them off.
Honey is nectar (not pollen) processed with bee spit. Often that nectar is from trees. Interestingly, tree honey is said to crystalize more slowly due to the glucose content.
Here, nectar flow starts in February with maple. Then there's black gum, locust, sassafras, poplar, holly, blackberry...and so on until sourwood. Then a dearth turns them to stranger sources for nectar before late summer flowers emerge.
During a dearth (i.e., when nectar is scarce), you might see them at your hummingbird feeder or even piercing fruit like figs and blackberries. Urban bees have been known to forage in dumpsters and create technicolor honey from food dyes.
Honey bees also adore chlorine, which is why beekeepers may accidentally cause chaos for neighbors with swimming pools.
Dearth doesn't just happen when it's hot and dry; badly timed rainshowers can wipe out entire nectar flows, rinsing blossoms of their nectar before the bees can get to it. It's something to consider when timing the watering your garden. In areas where ground-soakers aren't set up, we wait to water until bees appear finished foraging the garden flowers.
Also, feral honey bees like trees, too. Over the years, neighbors' swarms have repeatedly chosen this old sassafras stump over perfectly good empty bee boxes. We're grateful for the genetic diversity either way.
The longer I keep bees, the less I know, and what we've seen so far has made me realize how much I didn't know I didn't know about the world.
And now I'll stop derailing the thread with honey bee trivia and find something to post as tax
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