Bee Pollen - Specifically Jarrah bee pollen

I post this because (though I have never understood it) there are some that have for many years stated that it is best if you get "Australian" bee pollen for your glider diet. This made the Jarrah bee pollen very popular with sugar glider owners and vendors.

Here is some interesting information taken from:

Quote :

The Newsletter of the Western Australian Beekeeping Industry Volume 8 Issue 3 December 2009

Quote :

Our efforts to produce the highest qualitybee-gathered products like honey andpollen is in danger!

We have invested in expensiveresearch which results in programssuch as “B-Qual” and we have devotedfurther resources to the promotion and marketing of Western Australian beeproducts through beekeeper & honey company websites, and the JarrahPromotion Group. This has resulted in a good product ata reasonable price that will ultimately return profits to bekeepers so they can run their business.

Unfortunately, one business appears to be taking advantage of WA’s beekeepers by substituting another pollen for Jarrah
pollen and selling it as Jarrah pollen. This type of unconscionable conduct has been happening in Manuka Honey markets, where the high-priced product under some labels traded on the world market is not Manuka, but something else.
The same could happen to Jarrah honey as the price gradually increases.

An instance where another pollen is being labelled and sold as Australian Jarrah pollen has come to light. An American natural products company that has been connected with beekeepers in Western Australia since the late 1970’s has reported that another well established American company (see label) is selling pollen labelled as ‘Organic Australian Jarrah Bee Pollen”. That’s good you might say, but this substitute is taking advantage of our good name and reputation. This fake ‘Organic Australian Jarrah Bee Pollen” does not contain any pollen from Jarrah… not even any grains from the Eucalyptus genus!

[here they went into photos and microscopic analysis of the Stakich brand pollen sold as Jarrah here in the U.S. vs. their Jarrah pollen. I hope to get some screen shots up soon.]

So what is the “Stakich” pollen?
I’m not sure what the answer is. Perhaps a fatty acid profile of the sample will give me a clue. Perhaps it is pollen from another country - it does have a similarity to pollen from the Brassica species - however the pollen does not have the gritty taste I usually associate with canola – so only further testing will reveal its identity.

From our USA source we know what it is not. ..It is not organic pollen – there is no associated certificate. It is not from Australia – there is no phytosanitary certificate. And it is not Jarrah – the pollen grains not even a Eucalyptus species.

Incidentally the retail price of this fake “Australian” pollen was about US$12.50 per lb, which corresponds to about AUS $31.70 per kg. No one would be able to buy genuine Jarrah pollen for this price in Perth WA.

That is so interesting you posted that. I was just looking into Jarrah Bee Pollen a few weeks ago and saw on a number of sites it said that the trees only bloomed once every 2 years or so, so it wasn't available all the time and it looked to be a lot more expensive than the Stakich site. I was wondering how they had it available all the time.

I talked to Saul (bee keeper) about this the other day. I have switched my supplier for bee pollen after reading the article.