Are next year's bees affected by winter nutrition.

[fiat500bee]

Anyone who can be ar**d to have followed a previous thread where honey v. syrup/ overwintering is discussed may have reached the point frequently achieved in these beekeeping discussions where you're banging your head on the wall. To summarise, as of this date, we seem to have confirmed that sugar is at least, a reliable food to get bees through the winter. GOOD.

As the queen bee and next season's offspring all depend on those successfully overwintered bees for their nutrition, does anyone know of any scientific study which looks at the health and success rate of a colony overwintered on sugar versus one overwintered primarily on the bees own honey?

 

[masterBK]

The health of a colony depends largely on the absence of pathogens, inherited resistance to these if present and on the intake of pollen that includes all the essential amino acids, vits and minerals which ensures amongst other things a good immune system. If they have all these it is irrelevant whether their energy source comes from syrup or honey as I have mentioned before, most of the extra things in honey that are not found in syrup are in small quantities and most if not all can be obtained from pollen in much larger quantities). HONEY IS NOT A WONDER FOOD.

 

[Curly green finger's]

The health of a colony depends largely on the absence of pathogens, inherited resistance to these if present and on the intake of pollen that includes all the essential amino acids, vits and minerals which ensures amongst other things a good immune system. If they have all these it is irrelevant whether their energy source comes from syrup or honey as I have mentioned before, most of the extra things in honey that are not found in syrup are in small quantities and most if not all can be obtained from pollen in much larger quantities). HONEY IS NOT A WONDER FOOD.

So should we be mixing more pollen into our honey?
When extracting honey via crushing more pollen is in the honey.

Honeys must vary in the amounts of pollen they have in them. maybe

 

[Murox]

The successful overwintering of a colony depends on more than just one factor like good nutrition. As varroa is a bee killer and a big vector of disease and or weakens the bee's ability to fight off diseases, I think killing as many varroa mites as possible, so bees enter the winter free of mites, might be a very important factor in the survival of the colony.

 

[beeno]

So should we be mixing more pollen into our honey?
When extracting honey via crushing more pollen is in the honey.

Honeys must vary in the amounts of pollen they have in them. maybe

Pollen found in honey is incidental. Nearly all pollen in the hive is consumed by nurse bees to complete their development after emergence and to produce brood food thereafter to feed larvae.

 

[beeno]

In answer to your question fiat: "Are next year's bees affected by winter nutrition." Only if there is a pollen dearth or insufficient variety of pollen in the production of winter bees, which is happening now in my locale, i.e. if the winter bees are malnourished or if they have less than optimum honey/syrup stores during wintering.

 

[mbc]

It's the old story of capitol verses income, bees left with packed stores have no incentive to forage aggressively, bees that have had their honey harvested and then fed are obliged to forage for pollen by the income of nectar or syrup.
Many pollination contracts in the new world stipulate several carbohydrate feeds during flowering to trigger the bees to collect more pollen/protein, especially for flowers with low nutritional pollen and little nectar like kiwi fruits, it's considered better value for the orchardist.
Bees like a balance between carbohydrate and protein, tip it one way or the other by supplying a feed and they will strive to balance up the ratio of incoming grub.

 

[beeno]

Syrup stimulates brood rearing which requires pollen.