[Chemical composition of fresh bee pollen collected in the Misintá páramo from the Venezuelan Andes].

Venezuelan bee pollen has not been characterized, and marketing is not regulated. Pollen is consumed for apitherapeutical purposes for its nutritional and medicinal properties. This product of the hive is the most popular after honey; therefore it is necessary to characterize and to value it to initiate a database to support the proposal of a norm for bee pollen quality control. Samples of bee pollen collected by bees in the Misintá páramo of Mérida state were characterized accoridng to the chemical composition (moisture, ash, fat, pH, proteins) of four color fractions (yellow, orange, ochre, green). Yellow pollen was the most frequent fraction, with 2.18 g ash/100 g, 5.37 g ether extract/100 g, 14.88 g moisture/100 g, and 37.32 g proteins/100 g.