Pollen Substitute

[Finman]

, but this morning the bees are flying properly for the first time this year, and yellow and white pollen is starting to come in, so it looks like they won't be needing it after all.

LJ

that is one mistake in thinking: if they bring pollen, they need not patty.
Of course, they do not need patty at all. Very few feed patty.

But every spring when I feed patty, they bring pollen too. They eate 100 kg patty and unknown amount of pollen.
My pollen starts to come in at the beginning of May. I continue patty beeding the whole May.

The brood, what I have in first half of May, will be foragers at the end of June. Do I have 4 frames of brood or 12, it rules How much I have foragers at the beginning of main flow.


With heating and patty feeding I get 3-fold build up in big hives.
If you do not need better build up, you do not need it.

Beekeeping is not to me to keep hives alive. I want big yields!

 

[Finman]

I saw one of your recipies but it contained irradiated pollen, which you just cant get in the uk. The recipy that I have used is the soy flour, brewers yeast, lemon juice, canola oil and multi vitamin.

What recipe do you use that doesnt include irradiated pollen?

OK then. Very important is that sugar what you use , is 1/3 fructose. It keeps the patty soft.

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[HM Honey]

OK then. Very important is that sugar what you use , is 1/3 fructose. It keeps the patty soft.

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Thanks Finman, your advice is much appreciated.

 

[Little John]

that is one mistake in thinking: if they bring pollen, they need not patty.
Of course, they do not need patty at all. Very few feed patty.

If you're going to criticise, then at least have the good manners not to selectively quote. I clearly said "this year I made pollen patties for the very first time, as the bees were brooding-up for the year, but not flying."

It was my judgement that supplemental protein may have been needed. As luck had it, the weather has turned. But it might not have done.

But every spring when I feed patty, they bring pollen too. They eate 100 kg patty and unknown amount of pollen.
My pollen starts to come in at the beginning of May. I continue patty beeding the whole May.

The brood, what I have in first half of May, will be foragers at the end of June. Do I have 4 frames of brood or 12, it rules How much I have foragers at the beginning of main flow.


With heating and patty feeding I get 3-fold build up in big hives.
If you do not need better build up, you do not need it.

Beekeeping is not to me to keep hives alive. I want big yields!

Why would your reasons for keeping bees be of any interest to me ?

LJ

 

[PBee]

.
............
100% of beeks believe that sugar feeding helps in spring build up but it is not so.
Very few think that protein feeding is a key factor in feeding. But it is so.
..............
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Syrup feeding has a stimulatory effect on egg laying and pollen collecting so it should help spring build up, even where supplementary protein feed is necessary, when/where weather conditions allow.

SS has long been recognized by beekeepers as having a stimulatory effect, such as an increase in egg-laying and pollen-gathering activities (Barker 1971), as well as increased hygienic behavior (M. Spivak, Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota, personal communication). Free and Spencer-Booth (1961) observed bees switching their foraging strategy after sucrose feeding; they noted a decrease in the number of nectar foraging bees and an increase in pollen foraging bees to support colony brood rearing.

http://www.insectscience.org/13.19/i1536-2442-13-19.pdf

 

[richardbees]

Little J
I know exactly what you mean!
......... sometimes I see long strings of posts and envisage someone stuck underneath ten feet of snow with only a PC for contact with the outside world!
hopefully the weather change has removed the need for feeding pollen subs.
richard

 

[Finman]

Syrup feeding has a stimulatory effect on egg laying and pollen collecting so it should help spring build up, even where supplementary protein feed is necessary, when/where weather conditions allow.

Yes, if weather allows.

If weather allows, in Britain average honey yield would be 200 - 300 kg /hive.

Every guy try to stimulate spring build up with syrup feeding but where is the result? Can you describe what happens?

One thing happens that small hives are full of sugar and they swarm.

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[Little John]

Little J
I know exactly what you mean!
......... sometimes I see long strings of posts and envisage someone stuck underneath ten feet of snow with only a PC for contact with the outside world!
hopefully the weather change has removed the need for feeding pollen subs.
richard

Richard - you paint a good visual picture in words !

The last 12 months - from last April to this April - have been the most difficult beekeeping conditions even the oldsters among us can remember.

Yes indeed, let's hope the change in weather continues for a good long while ...

LJ

 

[PBee]

Yes, if weather allows.

If weather allows, in Britain average honey yield would be 200 - 300 kg /hive.

Every guy try to stimulate spring build up with syrup feeding but where is the result? Can you describe what happens?


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What happens is horses for courses.

In Finland you appear to have a much longer and colder/drier winter followed by a condensed, continental summer. We have much earlier sources of pollen but more chaotic weather patterns overall which obviously affects necessity for supplementary feeding and honey yield potential.

There are often conditions here in late spring where feeding syrup stimulates colony growth.

 

[Hivemaker.]

There are often conditions here in late spring where feeding syrup stimulates colony growth.

Manley said there was never better money spent than on stimulative feeding of sugar syrup during the June gap.

Or in the case of last year, the 2012 gap.

 

[Finman]

In Finland you appear to have a much longer and colder/drier... .

Sure. Just now I have 48 cm snow on my cottage area. Before May they are all gone.



Here too beeks try to activate spring build up with sugar. They really believe it.

Guys believe too that alder is a good pollen donator, even if bees can forage it only couple of days in a year. It blooms when ground is covered with snow and weather hardly rises to 10C.

I have not invented pollen patty feeding. The most prominent feeders are USA, Canada, Australia, NZ . In Finnish beekeeping books I cannot even find a term "nutrition" = ravitsemus.

I have read their researches and learned from them how to make patty.

In Australia syrup feeding has been used as stimulator with great succes-

Yes, in this forum I have got much education in climatology even if I studied it in Helsinki University. I have ability to read UK forecasts.

I have a friend in Milton Keynes. When I asked when spring arrives to England, she said that it varies very much in each year.

Our spring arrival varies perhaps 2 weeks

 

[Finman]

.
Here is articles about protein feeding in USA written by Heather Mattila and others.

http://www.globalpatties.com/pages/articles/nutrition.htm

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[PBee]

Fora are all about information flow and your experience/input on protein feeding is interesting and useful. I am not arguing against it just pointing out that stimulatory syrup feeding is also useful in certain conditions.

 

[richardbees]

feeding of sugar syrup during the June gap.

Or in the case of last year, the 2012 gap.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Or in the case of last year, the 2012 gap.

Yep, that was just so for me till I moved house and the bees discovered that Wales was covered in Himalayan Balsam

 

[Finman]

Fora are all about information flow and your experience/input on protein feeding is interesting and useful. .

You may feed with patty about a month, and if bees do not get pollen from nature, brooding will stop even with patty feeding. Patty is not so perfect food however.

It supports pollen foraging, but cannot replace it.

When there are bad times in foraging, in natural system, bees eate part of larvae. With patty feeding bees need not use their larvae as protein source.

,

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[Finman]

Our extreme weathers

I remember 2 extreme springs during last 10 years.

It was year 2002 (?). Spring was very mild and snow melted away 1,5 months before normal. Willows bloomed in April, but basic temperatures were so low that bees could not fly onto willows.

Some years ago May was so rainy that I calculated only 1 foraging days in 3 weeks blooming. In that year my hives stopped brooding at the beginning of June but other beeks told 3 weeks before me the same.

There are splended years and extreme disasters. But usually springs are between those edges.

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But as said, no one need to feed patty to bees. They live well without it.

Some love to count mites and some love to feed patty.

When I have feeded 20 years protein to hives, hives have never been stucked with pollen. At the beginning of summer all is gone and turned to worker bees.


In one year it rained only 20 mm in May. Splended build up. But dry weathers continued and the summer was so dry that it was a real catastrophe. Was it 2004 or something? Over 100 years old pines died on cliffs.

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