Pollen cleaners

Pollen leaves the drier with bits of bee, wax, dust and the odd broken grain. Cleaning is what separates a bulk product from one you can put in a jar with your name on it.

How cleaning works

By two criteria at once: size and weight. Sieves separate by calibre — a pollen grain passes, a bee's leg does not — and an air stream carries off the light material: dust, wings, husk. Good machines combine both, which is why they clean far better than a plain sieve.

The ladder

• Home use (€49) — for the beekeeper harvesting pollen from a few hives.
• MINIMA (€526) and Apimak® sieve (€899) — small production and direct sale.
• OPTIMA (€1,604) and up — when pollen is a business line and the volume justifies the machine.

The mill: a different product

The electric mill (€299) does not clean: it grinds. Ground pollen mixes better into preparations and has its own market, but it loses the whole-grain presentation, which is what the customer buying visible pollen wants. They are two different products, not two grades.

Dry before cleaning

Pollen that is not in the 6-8 % moisture window cakes and blocks the sieves, and is not stable either. The order is dry, then clean, never the other way round.

Driers are in pollen driers; the finished product in bee pollen.