pollen substitute

[filmmlif]

i opened my weakest hive today (it was nearly 70 degrees) and i found very little pollen. i have no pollen laying around so i guess i need a pollen substitute. any recommendations on where to buy it or how to make it?
thnx.

[Beth Kirkley]

Mann Lake has a pollen substitute they sell.

Beth

[Jerrymac]

How about Dadant? They have a place in Paris, TX.

[filmmlif]

cn i feed it this time of year?

[Jerrymac]

I'm just guessing here, but if the temp is up where you can place it in the hive then you can feed anytime.

[filmmlif]

thnx group for the info

[Finman]

hello,
       I was wondering if i could collect corn pollen to feed my bees for a spring buildup?            
                                                     latewood23@hotmail.com

I have not collected my own pollen, but I use Estonian pollen very much. This summer I have bought 40 kilos just for spring buildup. In Estonia earnings level is 1/7 compared to Finland. And my own pollen will stay in hives.

From internet I learned that I can use soya flour and yeast with pollen. If you put over 20% pollen to mixture, it is palatable for bees.

I make dough  with dough machine.

3   kg dry pollen
0,7    litre water to soften pollen ower night
3   kg yeast
2   kg soya flour
1   kg heated honey (liguid)
1   kg flour sugar
___________________
10,7   total

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.

Dough will be in condition at least 3 weeks in cold. The flour sugar add the content of sugar and stops yeast fermentation.

All thet stuff will transform to bees  

[Robo]

http://robo.hydroville.com/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4

[Finman]

http://robo.hydroville.com/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4

Be sharp! In many reports it is said that you should  put minimum 20% natural pollen. Without it bees do not eat substitute.  In my experience 30% is very good, and all hives eat it. 20% was not palatable for 50% of hives.

2-box hive consumes 0,5 kg /week if it likes that food.

If you go to normal grocery, you get those necessary goods from there.

[Jerrymac]

OK here is one of my why questions.

Why add all that other stuff to the pollon. In nature bees do not do that. Seems to me if they needed it then they would find it in nature. So why would man want to change the natural diet of the honey bee and think it is good for the bee?

[Lesli]

We like to meddle. Sometimes, to the detriment of the animals and ourselves.

Mad Cow disease is a good example. Who thought feeding ground up cow and sheep parts back to cows, natural herbivores, was a good idea?

[Finman]

OK here is one of my why questions.

Why add all that other stuff to the pollon. In nature bees do not do that. Seems to me if they needed it then they would find it in nature. So why would man want to change the natural diet of the honey bee and think it is good for the bee?

Natural pollen is 10 euros/kg. Yeast and soya flour is only 3 euros/kg.

I start to feed my bees 4 weeks before nature gives pollen, and I feed them 2 weeks after willows start.

My strategy is to get new bees just in the point when willow starts blooming. In May we have so bad weathers that I continue feeding .

My goal is  to get dandellion honey at the beginning of June.  

Now I have added electrical warming in my hives at spring. They develope 3 times faster than natural way.

Without feeding hives are ready to catch honey 1 month later, and  half of honey season is gone. Or honey summer is 2 months long.

[Jerrymac]

Lesli brought up the mad cow disease. How long did it take for this to show up after people started feeding them this other stuff.

So let's feed the bees yeast and soy and busted up bee parts. Or just what ever suits us to throw into their supper dish. Perhaps all will be fine for the next half century, then somewhere down the line those future bee keepers or having some problem, unknown to us today, but is because of stuff we do today.

[Robo]

Lesli brought up the mad cow disease. How long did it take for this to show up after people started feeding them this other stuff.

So let's feed the bees yeast and soy and busted up bee parts. Or just what ever suits us to throw into their supper dish. Perhaps all will be fine for the next half century, then somewhere down the line those future bee keepers or having some problem, unknown to us today, but is because of stuff we do today.

Sounds like you should be keeping your bees in gums then.

[Finman]

Lesli brought up the mad cow disease. How long did it take for this to show up after people started feeding them this other stuff.

So let's feed the bees yeast and soy and busted up bee parts. .

Heh heh and heh. I got those advises from USA http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/bkCD/HBBiology/nutrition_supplements.htm

It is from year 1977

My wife is afraid of the mad cow disease, but I am telling to my boy that don't worry,  men are pigs!

I can see that I have wrong company.  You drink beer but you are afraid of giving yeast to bees  

[golfpsycho]

dateline 2041
The Beltsville Bee research facility announced today that it had finally discovered the cause for the honeybee transformation.

Scientist Ima Meel explained.  We are now prepared to confirm that apis melifera, the common honeybee, is a maneater.  The metamorphosis of honeybees from peacefull nectar gathering insects, to the carnivoirous horde we see today, was precluded by the feeding of yeast and soy products.  Careless beekeepers in a thoughtless attempt to build up their colonies for the early nectar flow, and to make even MORE money, are entirely to blame.  Earlier reports that bees had carried off cattle were found to be erroneous, however, women, children and the elderly are at risk.

The researches have begun work on a super mite to help control the predators expansion into other parts of the country.

bahahaha... sorry... sometimes I just can't help my self.

[Lesli]

Sounds like you should be keeping your bees in gums then.

It's not that progress itself is bad--and a moveable frame hive is easier on beekeeper and bee.

 The point is that we do things like give the bees antibiotics twice a year, knowing that antibiotics used that way produce resistant bacteria.  We know that chemicals in the hive will eventually produce resistant mites (and maybe contaminate wax and honey, and shorten the life of the queen).

So it seems to me we should really think about what we're doing, and what we're putting in our hives.  Will soy and yeast harm the bees long term or short term?  Probably not...

Most of us aren't chemists or biologists or entymologists. We rely to some degree on these experts to help us out. But I don't think that we should take everything they say as gospel.

[Finman]

The researches have begun work with superman and I promised to be Super Man Proto.

Take care Super Bees, here I came

Note double twings!

[Jerrymac]

Can tylonol taken for aches and pains lead to the need for a kidney transplant? Has anyone ever heard of it? I never thought about it until about a week ago. My wife knows someone whos daughter had a kidney transplant because her kidneys failed because of taking tylonol (Yes TOO much I'm sure)

I'm sure most of the stuff done to/for bees is just fine and dandy to do it as/when needed. But what are the long term affects of any little thing we do if we do it too much and when not needed. Perhaps one day in the future you will hear a knock on the door and open it to find a colony of bees spelling out "MORE SOY" in the driveway.

I can't stand beer.

[Lesli]

find a colony of bees spelling out "MORE SOY" in the driveway

Mwahahahaha!

I swear, I'm not trying to be alarmist here. I'm just conservative and a bit skeptical. (or cynical, if you like). Corporations making mite treatments are not going to support breeding programs or FGMO or oxalic acid tests or small cell or anything else except more chemicals. And the chems will come to the shelf as quickly as possible, not after years of testing to see what ends up in wax or honey after a few seasons.

Let's say that tomorrow, MegaChem, Inc. came up with the perfect mite treatement--except that you have to use it twice a year. But you'll never lose hives due to mites again, because it will keep knocking down the numbers. And there's no residue in wax and it doesn't shorten the life of the queen.

Is that ideal?

Or is the ideal bees that can manage the mites on their own without the time and expense of MegaChem's treatment?