Pollen is not all yellow or orange; bees find and collect quite a range of colors.

Pollen is not all yellow or orange; bees find and collect quite a range of colors. This is particularly noticeable late in the summer in Western Washington State, when beekeepers see many colors of pollen as the bees pack away pollen stores for winter. When there is no major nectar flow to collect, a hive often turns more toward collecting pollen. The bees fill entire frames with pollens, often of many colors. At this time of the year, some pollen baskets are very visible on returning workers. However, beekeepers may have missed some of the pollen varieties collected, especially those collected earlier in the year, because grey, black, dark brown pollen pellets can be more difficult to spot, particularly if those pellets are smaller in size. Look at the pollen color chart at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pollen_sources . The grey color of small blackberry pollen pellets on foragers is hard to spot during the major blackberry flow on which we rely in this area on for a major honey harvest.