johnogaunt
New Bee
We had a very late start and low temperatures here in NW England for 2015(until end of May).Flowering was nearly 1 month behind normal for forage.
I noticed that pollen/bee bread stores were lower than expected from end of February onwards.
From my previous grafting experience the newly emerged day 3 larve were often dry,where one would expect a pool of jelly around the larva . There were plenty of sealed available stores from over winter or at least I moved capped frames to be next to one side of the brood nest and empty comb the other.
Should I have been giving pollen substitute from mid February onwards or would this not have been enough to raise successful brood with no external pollen availability.
I was scared the lack of natural pollen could have worsened the starvation if pollen substitute caused unjustified brood rearing before weather improvements were in any form reliable.
Does anyone have a more reliable method for guessing protein deprivation
other than my search for brood food in hopefully wet brood areas.
What do commercial beekeepers do when pollen does not appear or is protein supplementation always the best way to go whatever the season.
I noticed that pollen/bee bread stores were lower than expected from end of February onwards.
From my previous grafting experience the newly emerged day 3 larve were often dry,where one would expect a pool of jelly around the larva . There were plenty of sealed available stores from over winter or at least I moved capped frames to be next to one side of the brood nest and empty comb the other.
Should I have been giving pollen substitute from mid February onwards or would this not have been enough to raise successful brood with no external pollen availability.
I was scared the lack of natural pollen could have worsened the starvation if pollen substitute caused unjustified brood rearing before weather improvements were in any form reliable.
Does anyone have a more reliable method for guessing protein deprivation
other than my search for brood food in hopefully wet brood areas.
What do commercial beekeepers do when pollen does not appear or is protein supplementation always the best way to go whatever the season.
Last edited: