Making pollen patties - acquiring ingredients

[bee-nuts]

Those of you who make your own pollen patties, where do you buy the ingredients?  Particularly soy flour and brewers yeast.  And how important is it that you use brewers yeast?  I see some sub with bakers yeast according to the book I am reading.  I can get active dry yeast by the pound for $3.19 or cheaper in large quantity but I have no idea if it can be used.  The only place I have seen soy flour is at wal mart at 2.14 for 1.5 lbs.  Three other grocery stores had no soy flour.

I really want to start traping pollen so I can feed it in pollen patties in fall and spring but it is seeming to be a nightmare finding the ingredients and prices may make it out of the question.  I called a brewing store and asked how much a lb for brewers yeast.  He said anywhere from a dollar something to six something depending on the kind.  I said great, ill just get the cheap stuff.  I wasted an hour and a half and 15 dollars in gas to find out it was a DOLLAR SOMETHING A PACKET NOT A POUND!  The packets were not even one ounce, only seven grams.  I was mad to say the lease.

The ordeal was just about enough for me to scrap the whole idea when I figured that I might as well have order a case of the crap for the time and money I just wasted looking for ingredients alone.  But im not giving up that easy, I just want to find out where to get the stuff and research recipets for a while till I figure out something I like.

thanks for any tips, recipies, trick to mixing etc. you can provide. 

nuts

[Finski]

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It is same, is it bakery or brewer yeast.

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[BlueBee]

I was planning on experimenting with super high protein whey this spring, but with our heat wave, the bees have more than ample pollen from nature.  They packed in frames full of the stuff last week.  Isn’t the willows blooming in Wisconsin yet?  The cherries have started blooming here so now the bees have lots of pollen sources and some nectar too.

Yep, baker’s yeast is expensive!  Cheaper to buy sliced bread.

[bee-nuts]

Yes they are bringing in pollen.  I still want to start experimenting.  I want to be able to make them up when needed and not have to drive two hours round trip or wait a week for ups.

Im heading out right now to see whats blooming.  The first pollen they brought in was not pollen, they kicked it out.  I had piles in front of most hives.

Thank finski.

[rdy-b]

http://www.mannlakeltd.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=page41

http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/search.aspx?find=soy+flour

http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/soyproteinisolate44lb.aspx

http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/powderedeggyolks50lb.aspx

   :pop:

[buzzbee]

I used to get brewers yeast for my dogs at the farm supply stores. I am not sure if tractor supply would carry such an item or not. I thought I paid around four or five dollars for a pound.Which is quite a lot of yeast actually. Google it ,I'm sure you can buy it online somewhere.

[Finski]

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It depends of course what stuff you get with what price.

[rdy-b]

 Beenuts- :) How big of a batch are you going to mix ??? these ingredients can be located in 5 lb.
 increments-or 50 lb. increments-there are also great premixes available like beepro-megabee -and ultrabee
 they have a balanced amino acid profile already--just add to them with pollen-you can tweak your mix
 by use dry sugar with hot water--or sucrose syrup add some oils-6%-9%  volume or weight -and your
creating your own patty to suite your needs-if you start from scratch-remember to achieve the amino
acid profile the bees need (Degrot 1953) and calculate it to protein levels of natural pollen-19%-23%
and its all good- 8-) RDY-B

[bee-nuts]

I will probably need a 100 lbs or more come fall.  I plan to winter as many nucs as I can make up by end of august.  It will all depend on the fall pollen flow I guess.  Last fall was not to bad for pollen but there was zero nectar.  Year before, zero pollen but and fare nectar.  Year before that there was pollen up the wazoo till they quit flying and they had bottom boxes crammed full of pollen by cluster time.

Box elder is in full bloom and the girls have come to a hault on pollen patties.  I like the warm weather and all but the bees will miss out on some of the big pollen flows that should come later when they are already built up.  This is way to early for box elder I think and I was hoping to trap a bunch of it.  Oh well, have ta wait for other goods.

[BlueBee]

I doubt the bees are going to be lacking pollen this spring in the Midwest.  There are still lots of things to bloom.  The P Willow (salix discolor) has finished here in Michigan, but the Weeping Willow (Salix babylonica) is just starting to bloom here.  I believe they are one of the biggest pollen sources there is.  My bees have such a store of pollen now, I can’t imagine they will need any more for quite some time.  At least a brood cycle.

I would bet there is still time to get a pollen trap on there if you want, however the bees may have loaded up on as much pollen as they need for a while.

[bee-nuts]

I have to build the pollen traps yet.  I wanted to trap the box elder because and article I read said it produced more bees a lb than all other they tested.  When its in bloom they can bring in an enormous amount of it.  Oh well, its my fault for procrastinating on the traps anyway.