You said..."I have personally seen my Cham eat the sugar ants that wander into his viv, so they defiantly eat ants"...what do you mean "defiantly"?
You said..."Diet was huge with Coleoptera, and Petr did say "Beetles covered in Pollen", not every beetle is a Pollinator, however even the ones that are, would be covered in Flower Pollen, which is a different substance than Bee Pollen"...true.
You said..."Its not regulated at all in the states."...then I'm glad to be living in Canada!
I mean from the article you linked, from the Canadian FDA. It has a "Food Regulation" that means, light and little. Hit up your local farmers market, there is surely 5-6 different "tents" of people with a couple bee hives in their yard, slinging honey and pollen for sale.
Buying from Large brands, is likely "Safer" but even then, safety isn't guaranteed, but then again neither is our Gut load.
To Ants, I mean what I said. They 100% will eat Ants they come across. Ants are even used as feeders for babies, by some folks.
Lets think logically on this, without specifications of what
Hymenoptera they are eating. Which do you think a Chameleon is more likely to run into in the Wild? Bees inhabit trees, around Flower fields that they can procure Pollen from. With the exception of the Hive they are rarely around trees in my experience, though maybe not always.
Chameleons that hail from Madagascar, have some SERIOUS bee and Wasps Species to contend with, Those Bees and Wasps, kill humans, but we think a Chameleon could win a fight against a pack of them? Or survive a couple stings, when said stings can drop a Human Being?
Madagascar is home to MANY species of Tree Inhabiting Ants, some of those ants are very very large, and inhabit the very trees the Chameleons live in. They are in my guess, alot more likely to come across Ants than Bees in the wild, at least the Malagasy species. Most of the Flora that possess pollen, found in the areas around Malagasy Chameleons are not liked by Bees, or not able to have pollen extracted from Bees. They are more the territory of Hawk Moths, and Weevils.
I do feed my Feeder Bee Pollen, from a Large Supplier. However that gives a second layer of defense as well, I mix it into large batches of Gutload, I that test (as I dont trust the Gutload either lol) with a couple of feeders in advance of feeding the heard. If something was wrong with one of the products, the bugs would die long before they were fed to the chameleon, and alert me to an issue.
Straight up dusting the feeder, with a questionably sourced Bee Pollen is not something I would do.
