Sugar boards.

[OPAVP]

Hi folks,
I'm thinking ahead a little here.
I'd like to make some candy(sugar) boards.  If I mix in pollen,will the heat of the boiling destroy the pollen?

Any experience anyone?

Greetings from Alberta.
Cor Van Pelt.

[Michael Bush]

For pollen to useful to bees it has to be converted to bee bread.  This is a fermentation process that breaks down the hard shell on the pollen and makes the nutrients accessible to the bees.  I see no advantage to adding it to a candy board.  Just feed it in the fall so they can process it.

[Finski]

Hi folks,
I'm thinking ahead a little here.
I'd like to make some candy(sugar) boards.  If I mix in pollen,will the heat of the boiling destroy the pollen?

What is the meaning of your act?

Have you still summer and are bees foraging?
Have you checked the brood area that the hive get enough winterbees?

Have you pollen in flowers there?

candy was invented to transport package bees . It is most far from good bee food.

When do you start winter feeding?

[specialkayme]

I've fed them candy boards with some pollen sub mixed in last February. They didn't complain. They actually consumed it good. Of course, I don't know if they got anything out of the pollen sub, or if they just ate it for it's sugar content, but either way they built up very well.

[Finski]

I've fed them candy boards with some pollen sub mixed in last February. They didn't complain. They actually consumed it good. Of course, I don't know if they got anything out of the pollen sub, or if they just ate it for it's sugar content, but either way they built up very well.

I have accustomed to feed protein in spring to bees and that is not a right way to do it.

I make dough with dough machine.

3 kg dry irradiated pollen
0,7 litre water to soften pollen over night
3 kg dry baker yeast
2 kg soya flour with fat or without
1 kg fructose ( or honey if you do not have AFB)
1 kg flour sugar
3 multivitamin pill crushed and diluted into water.
150 mg C- vitamin = Ascorbic acid powder
___________________
10,7 kg total

Add two table spoon food oil if soya is fatfree.

28% pollen

If dough is too wet, add soya flour and balance the mixture with it.

Then I roll the paste between two dough paper to 5-8 mm plate and give it to the top bars of frame. During one week 2 super colony can eat 0,5-1 kg that dough. New born bees eat it very eargerly.

Near 20% pollen all colonies are not willing to eat dough. Keep total sugar content 50%. If yeast make bubbles add sugar.
Fructose take moisture from air.

http://bee.freesuperhost.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1144910827

[specialkayme]

I have accustomed to feed protein in spring to bees and that is not a right way to do it.

You misunderstood what I meant Finski. I feed pollen patties the same way you do, usually at the end of Feb or beginning of March.

I feed candy boards usually at the end of January or beginning of Feb for those light colonies that need a little bit of help to make it through the last bit of winter. I add pollen sub to the candy boards (my own choice). I find that it helps them build up a little bit before I start feeding pollen patties, but is in no way a replacement to pollen patties. I don't know if it actually helps or not, but the results last year were good.

[OPAVP]

Michael,How do you feed natural pollen in the fall? Make it into a patty? What else do put into the patty?
Thanks friends,keep the advice coming.

Cor Van Pelt.

[Finski]

I feed candy boards usually at the end of January or beginning of Feb for those light colonies

I feed hives full at the start of September. I cannot even touch the hives before Marsh when they have not made cleansing flights.


I put pollen frames into hive for winter. If some hive does not have pollen frames,
I take from another hive. Red glover gives very late pollen. that is why I prefer yard sites which have nearby red glover.  

If swarm has new drawn foundation combs they seldom store pollen in them. Bees prefer to store pollen into brown combs. Just now in many hives I have one box full of valuable pollen. But they spend most of them when they rear now winter bees.

Over winter pollen is very important. That is why Car nolan have early build up compared to Italians.

If you feed protein to Italians, they build up is equalto carniolans.

[Finski]

Michael,How do you feed natural pollen in the fall?

Bees need a huge amount of pollen in the fall.
They rear wintering bees and when brood emerge, they need again much pollen to be good winterers.

[FRAMEshift]

For pollen to useful to bees it has to be converted to bee bread.  This is a fermentation process that breaks down the hard shell on the pollen and makes the nutrients accessible to the bees.  I see no advantage to adding it to a candy board.  Just feed it in the fall so they can process it.

Do you feed pollen and then remove it for winter?

I try to leave them nothing but honey if I can.  They will get dysentary in a long winter no matter what they eat, but it's usually caused by pollen (and brood rearing),

[Michael Bush]

>Michael,How do you feed natural pollen in the fall? Make it into a patty? What else do put into the patty?
Thanks friends,keep the advice coming.

If and when I feed pollen I open feed real pollen on a screened bottom board over a solid bottom board in an empty hive.

[specialkayme]

Finski - do you have small hive beetles in Finland?

I think if I left a patty in their for the winter, I'd open them up in spring to find out that I've been keeping beetles, more so than keeping bees.

[Finski]

Finski - do you have small hive beetles in Finland?

No we dont. Neither ice bears.