Red pollen, from?

Are you sure the kings park bottlebrush is red pollen? I’m pretty certain it’s yellow. When it’s producing pollen you can run your hand down the flower and end up with a yellow hand.

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I second that. Bottle brush pollen is typically yellow or golden, not red.

Bottlebrush - Callistemon - Australian Plant Information
The flower spikes of bottlebrushes form in spring and summer and are made up of a number of individual flowers. The pollen of the flower forms on the tip of a long coloured stalk called a filament. It is these filaments which give the flower spike its colour and distinctive ‘bottlebrush’ shape. The filaments are usually yellow or red, sometimes the pollen also adds a bright yellow flush to the flower spikes.

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Thanks Danno sorry about the long gap before replying, haven’t been able to get onto the forum for awhile. We do have Callistemon, & possibly some are this variety, I will check again next time in flower. The ones closest to us though had red flowers & yellow pollen.

We do thanks Raelene, will have a closer inspection next flowering :slight_smile:

So I finally found out where the red pollen comes from…it is from a variety of Banksia ericoides.

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A friends basil plant produces red pollen too. It’s a woody version of basil.

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Greek basil (Ocimum basilicum), I have that too but it’s much more a dark orange than the red pollen they were bringing in. By the way they absolutely love the Greek Basil, it’s incredibly prolific & doesn’t seem to ever stop flowering, & very easy to strike cuttings from. At 7.00am this morning & 8 degrees, bees foraging the Basil.

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Kirsten, thanks for that, mine are enjoying the sweet basil but I just don’t have enough of it. Next spring must put some in.
Is Greek basil the little fine leaf one seems to grow in a very round ball shape??
Cheers S

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My Greek basil bush already grows it its fifth year. It’s almost as tall as me. Cuttings are easy to root indeed. It’s always full of various types of native bees, but rarely see an Italian in there.
The neighbour’s salvia bushes are preferred, even though they are 600m away.
My bees also bring in orange red pollen, a lot of them in March.
I so wish I knew where my bees fly to. We are surrounded by a National Park. Guess there are a lot of nectar and pollen sources.
In the combs you can see all the stored differently colored pollen. Red is very striking when they bring it in.
From one flow frame I had about 50 undesolved orange red pollen pillules floating in the honey.

That’s the one. I had to cut mine back & used the cuttings to strike. I just cut into 5cm pieces with 3 leaf nodes along the stem, lowest node at the base of cutting & put into water on the window sill. They all had rrots in about 4 days, then into soil. All of those are now about 15-20cm high & flowering. I only did this about 6 weeks ago, so depending on where you are if you have any warm weather left you could probably start them off now even?
I tried to find a photo of mine but all my images from past 4-5 months are just in one lump & my nephew changed the date on my camera so none of the images make sense time wise. Here’s a pic from good old internet…

Your situation sounds very similar to mine in terms of National Park etc. My dad was saying yesterday that I need to invent a camera attachment for bees in flight, he named it BusyBee Cam. He’d been watching one of those nature doco’s where they have a camera disguised as a poo or a cub, & attachments on birds.
The Blue Banded Bees love love love the basil too, they happily forage along side the honey bees. My bees actually seem to prefer the basil to the majority of the salvias I have, but at the moment they are really enjoying the Banksia serrata.
I’m working up a folio of pollen ID from my hives. I’ve found a beekeeping vet with an amazing lab set up dedicated to his bees & he lets me use his microscopes etc. Have lots of samples & a busy winter organising & identifying, drawing etc.

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I started one…Thanks for the kick up the …
I’m going to have a go at the honey…see what the bees have been on :slight_smile:

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Kirsten, yes that looks to be the one I was thinking of, I have grown it over the years but it never over wintered. Would you be able to save some seed for me?
Not the I know how we could contact each other, is it by email and then address? You are not far away from me, I am just on the Mornington Peninsula.
Cheers S

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Happy to save you some seed, I can post to you & can try posting established cuttings. If you get the cutting into pots straight away should be fine. PM me your address & will let you know when sending.

Hi - Have you used a pollen trap with a flow hive at all?

Hi Nicole, no I can’t say I have. I have one that I bought nearly 30 years ago. You simply use it in place of a bottom board. The same thing would apply with a flow hive I guess.