I'm sure you already know this, but for general knowledge; if the anthers are not completely dry (and I mean completely) I have noticed it will condensate inside. And of course the given time for them to dry varies on lots of things' temperature, air flow in room, lighting, etc. I found that if you can put them under a ceiling fan or near a stand fan on low they dry faster. I put mine in those little dixie cups so they don't blow away. I have had anthers I've collected at 9am still not be completely dry by 3pm (no fan in room). I took them home with me to finish drying, turned a fan on in the room and they were dry in no time. Sometimes the anthers seem to dry faster if left on the filament versus removing them. I have taken whole blooms in because I didn't have time to remove anything before I got busy with other stuff and those anthers would be dry way before the ones I had removed earlier. Once the anthers are dry I pour them out of the dixie cups into the vial. I did try once to put the anthers directly in the vials and leave them open to dry but there wasn't enough air circulation for them to dry properly and it ruined the pollen.
Other than that the vials of pollen need to thaw before opening it. Some say 5 min others say 20 min to thaw. As hot as it gets here, by the time I walked to the daylilies and was ready to pollenate they were thawed. Also, another suggestion was after you are done with the vial to let it sit open for a bit once back inside so any moisture that the pollen sucked in (lack of a better term) would dry out again. Sometimes I did this and sometimes I didn't have time so I just threw it back in the freezer when I was done. Didn't seem to make a difference either way. I have pollen I am using from last season that had been stored in the vials.
Another thing you can do is if you don't have luck with the vials not condensating is once the anthers are dry or shoot, even before they are dry, you can swab the pollen onto a Q-tip that is cut short enough to fit into the vial and then store only the Q-tip in the vial. You can store it cotton side up so when you open the vial the pollen is right there and you just dab away. I have turned them the other way and used the forceps to grab the stick part and used it to hold it and dab. I did this to begin with because I was afraid I wouldn't let the anthers dry long enough.
