pollen substitute patties and sugar syrup

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Hi

This to me seems all wrong, why feed them now , and that is a question as I do not know the forage levels in Morocco.

Though trying to replicate pollen with that concoction seems wrong.

Is there no ocal forage for them to build up for winter ....naturally ?

I feed them now because there is no pollen available, from august to march, so I need to feed them to increase the number of my bees, and to they draw comb for the next nectar flow.
 
.
Dry milk is inproper to bees. 50% of it is lactose, which bees cannot use.
Rest is good protein but expencive..
Dry yeast is vey good.

Look from this forum my recipe of pollen patty.

An Egyptian bee professor has made feeding researches. Find from internet.

Move bees to pastures where the get pollen. So do real beekeepers.

.
I've read a lot of research on how to make pollen substitute patties, they say that Non-fat Dried Milk is very good for bees .
can you give me a link to your pollen patty recipe, and for the Egyptian bee professor researches.
 
BrianO

It's important that your "winter bees" are well nourished going into the winter period.
This is especially true of protein intake as this affects the stores of vitellogenin in fat bodies in the head and abdomen. In simple terms these fat bodies act as a food storage area.

We always feed a protein supplement for the last two brood cycles of the year, regardless of pollen stores. The bees always consume them.
Our winter losses are minimal.
what kind of protein supplement you feed your bees with ?
 
I feed them now because there is no pollen available, from august to march, so I need to feed them to increase the number of my bees, and to they draw comb for the next nectar flow.

You cannot do that with pollen patty. Australians tried same thing in their research. Result was that hives got bad nosema and they were in worse condition after winter than normally wintered hives.

I have feeded 10 years my hives with polen patty. One spring was so rainy that bees cannot get pollen from nature. After 1,5 months feeding with patty hives stopped laying. One year I reared 6 one box hives with electrict heating and with pollen patty. Practicaly all hives died in winter.

Bees need real pollen to survive over winter or over ry seasons. That is one issue in American CCD

About skimmed milk.... Yes you may read what ever from internet. I gove to you an advice and you abandoned it. Difficult to help then.
You have hard work to learn the patty feeding.
 
Last edited:
You cannot do that with pollen patty. Australians tried same thing in their research. Result was that hives got bad nosema and they were in worse condition after winter than normally wintered hives.

I have feeded 10 years my hives with polen patty. One spring was so rainy that bees cannot get pollen from nature. After 1,5 months feeding with patty hives stopped laying. One year I reared 6 one box hives with electrict heating and with pollen patty. Practicaly all hives died in winter.

Bees need real pollen to survive over winter or over ry seasons. That is one issue in American CCD

About skimmed milk.... Yes you may read what ever from internet. I gove to you an advice and you abandoned it. Difficult to help then.
You have hard work to learn the patty feeding.

Feeding a good quality pollen supplement in autumn will not give your bees Nosema, that's just rubbish.

There is a difference between dysentery and nosema.
 
Feeding a good quality pollen supplement in autumn will not give your bees Nosema, that's just rubbish.

There is a difference between dysentery and nosema.

Everything is fubbish to you.
Read from an Australian research. .... That rubbish reseach. They have nade lots nutrition researches.

Tell me what is difference with dysentry and nosema.
 
Feeding a good quality pollen supplement in autumn will not give your bees Nosema, that's just rubbish.

There is a difference between dysentery and nosema.

Have you used that good quality suplement and what is its name?
 
An average size colony will consume around 0.5kg per week.

So if you feed for three weeks, you will see the benefit for 6 weeks as there is a latent effect.

We feed well over 1000kg annually

Anyway I'm not trying to convince anyone here, you are all free to manage your bees as you see fit.
I'm just sharing what we do.

I'm afraid I'm not able to share our formulation as that is commercially sensitive and the subject of a patent application.

What I will say is that Mann Lakes Ultrabee is the best of what's available at the moment, with the caveat that in my opinion it's not properly balanced.
 
Well. That is amazing amount of patty.

Okay. I spoke rubbish. Everyone may do as they do. Best luck to all who were nog able to rear hives big enough and they must continue after summer.

But mad idea to rear winter bees with patty. Short of pollen informs to bees that winter is coming and better to stop brood rearing.

Like Germans have researched, there is no use to rear bees longer than summer offers pollen. Feeder bees die and cluster will not grow in autumn.

.
 
Last edited:
You are just missing the point completely.

It's all about getting those bees that are going to cluster over winter in to the best possible condition so that they have the best chance of survival and are able in spring to give the queen the support she needs when egg laying starts to increase before new bees emerge.

In autumn it's not about increasing the number of bees, just quality of those you want to overwinter successfully.
 
Research presented at the WBKA convention showed that in colonies which were fed protein supplements when pollen was unavailable, brood rearing ceased after one brood cycle.

The researcher's conclusion was that bees need pollen, and supplements are not sufficient.
 
Depends on the supplement
 
You are just missing the point completely.

.
Oh dear, what I have done!!!!

The point! I got 60kg/hive honey and in some site every hive brought 100 kg/hive on 3 weeks.
And I have not started extracting. Yes, point is missing... Badly..
 
Last edited:
.
Well well.

And British beekeepers buy Sugar with 6 fold price when it has 3% German pollen.

Sipa, who has missed the point! Oh dear.

And where you have been when guys advertise "inverted" Winter Sugar with 3 fold price.

.
 
Last edited:
BrianO

It's important that your "winter bees" are well nourished going into the winter period.
This is especially true of protein intake as this affects the stores of vitellogenin in fat bodies in the head and abdomen. In simple terms these fat bodies act as a food storage area.

We always feed a protein supplement for the last two brood cycles of the year, regardless of pollen stores. The bees always consume them.
Our winter losses are minimal.
this might sound thick , how do you know when its the las 2 brood cycles of the year ?
 
this might sound thick , how do you know when its the las 2 brood cycles of the year ?

Good question... let me take a crack at an answer...
It takes 21 days for a worker to emerge after the egg has laid. Therefore, two cycles would be 2 * 21 = 42 days.
The tough part is guessing when the last two cycles occur. After all, the queen continues laying a few eggs even when the weather is so bad that we don't disturb the colony. Based on your experience of what the weather is like in your area, work backwards 42 days and you have a point in time which you can use as a guide...only a guide. It will change depending on the weather just like most things in beekeeping.
 
The bees do very well without pollen supplements in this area, pollen available all year round and they mostly cram the lower boxes full of it, too full at times, they over winter well with very few losses.
But i can understand the need for pollen sub in some of the more barren parts of the country.
 
Back
Top