# General beekeeping > Bee health >  Dandelion pollen is of poor nutritional quality for honey bees?

## Greengage

Hi Anyone down load this citation that i could read, i could join and pretend i am a research student at a collage. 

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...nal_Evaluation

It would appear from the bits I can access that pollen from dandelions are overrated as a  source of protein for for honey bees.  Dandelions appear to be missing some of the amino acids needed to manufacture protein.  Some of this research seems to indicate that honey bees fed dandelion pollen alone have low success at raising brood or fail to raise any at all when fed pollen from dandelions alone.

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## Pete L

Willow and OSR  are not too special either, one of the best is Gorse, which flowers pretty much all year round.

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## Greengage

> Willow and OSR  are not too special either, one of the best is Gorse, which flowers pretty much all year round.


I thought i read somewhere that Pollen from Brassicas was pretty good do you have a link to that. This is one for dandelion pollen I found.
https://academic.oup.com/jee/article...rectedFrom=PDF

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## Pete L

There are a lot of research papers about protien of various pollens, OSR is about average or slightly below at 23% gorse is above average at a little over 28%.
Here is one article.
http://www.nbba.ca/wp-content/upload...ed_Pollens.pdf

There is a better one I have read, but don't have time to find it just now.

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## steve

I'll trust the bees to know what they like and what's good for them. They seem to love Dandelion and Willow.

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## Calluna4u

Even during a full flow on OSR some bees go hunting dandelion. I think a lot of these studies are too narrowly focussed and draw conclusions that are fine in the isolation of the theorists lab, but very different in the field.

I believe they hunt a balanced diet...and say OSR pollen, whilst rich, does not give them everything they need so they look for mixed feeding. FWIW gorse seems to be one of the fastest to be abandoned when other forage becomes abundant. Despite there being plenty of it around many of our places we would say it was a medium importance pollen plant judging by how much they bring in of it. They don't read the books and do what they want.

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## Pete L

I don't know how good gorse is elsewhere, but here I class it as of major importance, especially during the winter and early spring, they collect an abundance of it and any colonies within easy reach of it are always the most advanced in spring, (usually make sure that is most of them for this reason)

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## greig1983

IMG_8565[1].jpg

This girl loves the Dandelion

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## Adam

I believe I read somewhere that high quantities of dandelion flower result in yellow comb being drawn? I often see them in verges at this time of year.
In any case a variety of pollen plants has to be good. BBC radio 4 (Inside science?) was on yesterday and there was a piece about the lack of diversity in grass verges. The conclusion was to not cut them until September and then to remove the cut debris to allow seeds to fall through to germinate.

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## lindsay s

> I believe I read somewhere that high quantities of dandelion flower result in yellow comb being drawn? I often see them in verges at this time of year.


You’re right Adam, my strongest colonies are drawing plenty of yellow comb at the moment and my friend Sue has often noticed this with her bees too. There is an abundance of them out here this spring and the fields are full of them. The weather has been kinder than usual so the bees are making the most of them. Although our bees store dandelion honey most of it doesn’t end up in the supers which is fine because it has very strong flavours.https://www.natureword.com/propertie...ndelion-honey/
The bit in the above link about mild diarrhoea is certainly true for some of our bees because it’s noticeable on the outside of our hives.
The daffodils have been brilliant this year with long stems and the rooks are nesting high in what few trees we have, so according to the local sages we are in for a good summer. I do hope they’re right.

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## Blackbrood

this is a good read for bee nurtition. fat bees skinny bees. This is a link to the PDF.

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## lindsay s

> I believe I read somewhere that high quantities of dandelion flower result in yellow comb being drawn?


Here's an update on my last reply to this post. The photos were taken yesterday. As you can see the foundation being drawn is quite yellow, their honey has been capped yellow and even the sealed brood has a yellow tinge to it. I would think that a high percentage of the unsealed stores are from the dandelions as well. They are starting to go to seed now but some of my colonies have done well on the dandelions this spring.
P.S. You can see why I keep dark bees because if they were yellow I would never find them on the comb. :Big Grin:  :Big Grin:  :Big Grin:

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