The worker bee, as soon as it is placed on the flower, scrapes the pollen with its front paws and directs it into its mouth where it moistens it with honey which it has stored in its crop. This sweet mixture gives rise to a dumpling that she will pass from her mouth to a small basket that sits on each of her hind legs. Quickly the baskets grow bigger and our worker bee must use all its strength to drag the baskets full of balls which are hanging on its hind legs. The weight of the filled baskets can reach 50% of the weight of the bee. How brave!
Once the baskets are full, our worker bee goes to the hive where it will store the precious food. The balls will not be stored anywhere, stores in the form of departments are reserved for this use. The worker bees will finish the job by carefully packing the pollen in the combs, while the forager bees will set off again and again to collect pollen and nectar.
All this pollen stored in the stores will be used to feed the little ones. It is a food high in protein and nitrogen, without which the bee could not live. It is the main food of the hive.
In no case is pollen part of the composition of honey, which is produced by bees from nectar and honeydew.