Re: Bee Myth or truth?
Even when a hive is queenless / broodless, they continue to forage, albeit sometimes not as vigorously. If while collecting nectar, they get coated in pollen, what are they going to do, throw it away before they go back into the hive?
Best I've been able to tell from watching bees at the entrance, the bees in a queenless hive are bringing in similar proportion of pollen to the queenright hive next door.
There are a few myths around beekeeping, the "bees only collect pollen if they have a queen" is one of them. Since the internet has become widely used for information sharing it's helped dispel a few of the old myths, but it's also propogated a few new ones. Human psychology is an interesting thing.
44 years, been commercial, outfits up to 4000 hives, now 120 hives and 200 nucs as a hobby, selling bees. T (mostly).