Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => TOP BAR HIVES - WARRE HIVES - LONG HIVES => Topic started by: Grizzly8119 on February 14, 2012, 11:22:06 am
-
Hey I found some bee pollen at the health food store. It is the real stuff I was just wondering if it would benefit the bees to feed them some. I got the hive very late in the season and wasn't able to make a full box in a ware hive but I have been feeding them and they are fine. Just wondering if it would help them.
-
I don't recommend it, as you have no way of knowing the pathogen load of the hive that produced the pollen. For instance the pollen could contain spores for American Foulbrood. If your hive is healthy it will collect pollen for itself. If you must feed protein, then pollen-sub you know the provenance of is better than pollen from an unknown source.
-
Cattail pollen is fairly easy to collect. Not sure if the bees like it, but if gathered by humans in canoes, not likely to have diseases from other bee hives.
-
Bees collect it. That's how they got it in the health food store. Rather than feeding it to your bees why not collect it from your bees?
-
Mr. Bush or others,
This is my first post and be advised that English is not my first language so, please forgive the spelling. We are setting up our first two TBHs. We are getting two 5 lbs packs around June 15th. We live in an agricultural zone 4b north of Ottawa Ontario. My question is should we install pollen traps on our hives?? If yes, how have you set yours up? Why do we have to install pollen traps? We found at Betterbee.com a product called Anatomic Pollen Trap. What do you think of this product??
Any help you can provide will be very appreciated. We have "The Practical Beekeeper" and "The §¤«£¿æ". We love these books. This is were our "experience" comes from... :-P