Description

Adult worker bee foragers collect pollen from flowers, pack it into pollen baskets on their hind legs and bring it back to their hive. It is a powdery substance consisting of pollen grains which are male microgametophytes of seed plants. It is the male gamete, the male reproductive cells of flowers. A forager collects the thousands of pollen grains at flower anthers, mositurizing them with nectar from their honey stomach and salivary gland secretions to enable their transport.

Pollen is the bees source of protein, minerals, acids, sterols, etc. It is required for rearing their young and young adults use it for cell growth and to enable gland development.

The pollen is placed in beeswax cells by the foragers (they scrape the 2 pollen pellets into a cell)  and packed tightly into the cell by house bees. Honey, saliva and enzymes added by foragers and house bees result in probiotic bacteria and yeasts breaking down the protein into a form useable for bee digestion. The bees glaze cells filled with the converted pollen (now termed bee bread) with a honey glaze.

Some pollen grains remain clinging to body hairs of returning foragers and a few flowers might provide a yellow face or streak of pollen on the forager thoraxthorax:
the middle region of the adult bee body, which lies in between the head and the abdomen; consists of three segments: pro-, meso-, and meta-thorax; thorax attachments include three pairs of legs and two pairs of wings
. This pollen with a characteristic flower odor (to bees at least) helps communicte sources of forage by bees recruiting pollen foragers with dancing.

Beekeepers feed patties of protein with some pollen added (pollen supplements) or without (pollen substitues) to colonies to boost colony production of brood strength.

See also bee bread