# Homemade Pollen Cleaner



## bee crazy (Oct 6, 2005)

what I do is freeze up gallion zip lock bag about 3/4 full.
I then take the frozen pollen and dump it out on to a jelly roll sheet pan. I get all the lumps and gumps smoothed out. Then I screen it with #6 or 7 mesh to get the dead bees and big stuff. Actualy I screen it as I pour it out onto the pan. I then start up a small 3 speed fan and run it on med speed next to the pan. Then I toss the pollen in tne air onto the pan for a few minuits. The air blows across the pan to get the chaff, bee wings, and pollen dust blown off the pan and onto a wet towell hung on the other side of the pan. I do this outside if weather is fine or in the garage if weather isn't fine.
I then dehydrate it and bottle it. Don't over dry the pollen....It should be dry but not hard pellets like granola. Our American Harvester will do a 2 pound (before dried) load in about 4 hours, stiring the pollen each hour. I have dried before cleaning it and ithat worked ok too.
Hope this helps...a cheap way that really works.


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## simplyhoney (Sep 14, 2004)

Thanks bee-crazy,

The only problem is that I have quite a bit I bought from another beek that has bits of junk about the same density as the pollen. But the fan works pretty well, thanks.


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## bee crazy (Oct 6, 2005)

simplyhoney said:


> Thanks bee-crazy,
> 
> The only problem is that I have quite a bit I bought from another beek that has bits of junk about the same density as the pollen. But the fan works pretty well, thanks.


Well the only other way is to buy a seed cleaner, but those are expensive and work on the screen and blow air across the seed principle, I'd keep screening and tossing
Sorry I don't have a better solution


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

We clean several hundred pound of pollen a year. We freeze it gallon bags to kill wax moth eggs, dry it and then "winnow' it in front of fan. We simply use one of those small round oscillating fans (in the stationary mode) and slowly dump the pollen from a smaller bowl into a large plastic salad bowl with the dumping bowl about 2 feet above the receiving bowl. The fan blows about 95% of the pollen dust, legs, heads etc. past the bowl receiving bowl and onto the ground and the pollen falls into the lower bowl. By using a plastic bowl on the bottom any items that do get through will stick to the bowl from static and give you a 2nd cleaning. It takes a little practice to get the bowls and fans lined up but after a pound or 2 it's easy. We can clean 20 lbs ($180 worth) of pollen in a 1/2 hour and that include set up and tear down.


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## wayacoyote (Nov 3, 2003)

*Using a small "wind tunnel?"*

How would I turn one of my dozens of junk computer fans to clean the pollen. i've seen those wired into a 4" square air duct. I just don't know how to do the wiring first of all. Would I have to use the computer power transformer to power it? 

thanks


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

Most of those fans are DC. You can run one of those fans on flashlight batteries.


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## fuzzybeekeeper (Nov 23, 2005)

Wayacoyote,

I have been thinking about my computer fans to build a small pollen cleaner, too. I just have not had the time to work on the concept. No, you do not need to buy a computer power supply.

The big computer fans that cool the towers are 12 volt DC. The volts and amps are usually listed on the spinning center of the fan. You can use almost any adaptor/charger that plugs into the wall that lists 12 volts as the output. They are really quite common when you look at what you have around the house. Look on the big part of the adaptor/charger that you plug into the wall and it will list the volts and amps for the output. You can use multiple fans on the same power supply if the amps of the fans does not exceed the amps that the power supply puts out.

For instance, if the fan is a 12 volt, .19 amp, and the power supply is listed at 12 volt, 1.2 amp, then you could run up to 6 fans on that power supply.

Yes, you can run the fans off of batteries, but they will blow less air as the batteries weaken. They will last for a while, though.

I have a 12 volt fan on my observation hive that I take on demonstrations. I run it on 8 - AA (1.5 volts) batteries in a holder that I got at Radio Shack for around $2. It will run around 10 hours on those rechargeable batteries.

The fans that cool the computer motherboards are a little smaller and are the 5 volt power. Your computer power supply puts out two different voltages for this reason. The 5 volt power supplies are not as common to find. You can hook a 5 volt fan up to a little stronger power supply and it will work, but it will run faster and will probably burn out real soon, depending on how much stronger the power supply is.

I am NOT an electrical engineer, but I am a tinkerer and have been "playing" around with this stuff all my life. I AM open to correction!!!

Fuzzybeekeeper


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## MikeJ (Jan 1, 2009)

Is there a reason to clean it and not to just feed it back to the bees and let them taken the pollen out of the other?


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## daknoodle (Dec 8, 2005)

MikeJ said:


> Is there a reason to clean it and not to just feed it back to the bees and let them taken the pollen out of the other?


A lot of people sell their pollen for a profit. So it has to be cleaned for human consumption.


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## Troy (Feb 9, 2006)

I bought and used the Sundance II top mounted traps last year and saw no need to clean it at all. 

It came out of the drawer looking very good.


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## wayacoyote (Nov 3, 2003)

I have a Sundance II as well. Yes, the pollen is very clean, except for the invading ants and occassional SHB which end up in the mix and the freezer.

So, yes, I do like the Sundance II and the bottom one I bought off a friend (maybe a Sundance - original?). Both are very clean, except for some ants and other bugs.


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## DocBB (Aug 26, 2010)

you will find a really basic plan here



and a video (also in french) with the device





 do activate captions and translation


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