Not surprisingly at later annual High Times Cannabis Cups, Hashish, made with Mila’s Pollinators® was entered by several Coffeeshops and were judged to be the best in the world when smoked alongside the best Afghan, Indian and Moroccan entries. Not a bad achievement for a lady who just wanted to be able to make a good free smoke for herself from material that was seen as waste... “In early spring 1993, the idea of the Pollinator was born. We used to make hash (I’m a hash smoker, rather than a marijuana smoker) sitting in cold rooms over a screen – gently tumbling waist leaf material in the air. A very slow and tedious method of collecting resin glands, producing only a few grams of pure product. One day I stood in front of the clothes dryer and realised – these cloths were tumbling the same way I tumbled my small manicuring leaves. I couldn’t wait - within 12 hours we’d pulled an old clothes dryer apart and refashioned the drum to our liking and there it was – the first electric machine to produce hash*. Our department of research and design has now got three standard models which are good for 150, 500 and 3 kg at a time. We also have small handheld models and one huge machine The Dave, where you shovel your waste material in at one end. You can adjust the legs so you can determine how long the leaf tumbles, and thereby determine your quality. Anywhere between 3-5 minutes up to 20 minutes” 

 

The Pollinator® machine contains a removable drum which can be opened for leaf material to be inserted inside. The drum is then closed and placed back inside the Pollinator® where it is turned by an electric motor. The resin glands on the leaf material fall through the precise fine screen around the drum onto the bottom of the Pollinator® container where it can be collected later. The quality of the Hashish is dependant on the length of time the drum is allowed to turn. A turning of three to five minutes produces top quality hashish (containing only resin glands and not any plant material, dirt or other impurities); longer turning results in a lower quality as the plant material is broken down and falls through the screen, again mixing with the plant material. The five minute turning of the Pollinator® produced hashish that traditionally would have taken hours of labour intensive work. This meant that Dutch growers of cannabis were easily able to make a small amount of excellent hashish from material that previously was seen as waste.