Spring build-up....or not

[Poly Hive]

Some of the big boys who used to feed pollen no longer do and the reports I have heard suggest they have found pretty much no difference.

PH

 

[Finman]

Some of the big boys who used to feed pollen no longer do and the reports I have heard suggest they have found pretty much no difference.

PH

Protein feeding gives more early bees, but if you are not able take advantage from that, it does not help.

To me patty feeding gives one yield month more.

IT is strange that when guys use humbug stuffs, results have been good.
.

 

[Finman]

.
One year my neighbour said, that he did get dandelion honey even if he fed patty.

I asked that did he noticed that it was only one day when bees could go to flowers during dandelion blooming. Other days were rainy and cold.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Some of the big boys who used to feed pollen no longer do and the reports I have heard suggest they have found pretty much no difference.

PH

Several years ago, I was at a presentation by Heather Matilla. She and Gard Otis did a study on feeding pollen substitutes. When building colonies for the flow, she found that it was necessary only about one year in four. I feed pollen sub every spring, because I never know when it will be one of those four years, until it's too late to correct the situation.


http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1603/0022-0493-99.3.604

 

[Finman]

.
Last summer I add 3 fold my hive number by pollen patty and electrict bottom heating

 

[Finman]

S


http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1603/0022-0493-99.3.604

Mattila & Otis : but long-term improvement in honey yields may only result when spring foraging is severely reduced by inclement weather.

How can you see the lack of pollen? When brood frame has holes, it means that bees have used larvae as a source of protein. If you feed protein, the brood area is even as a waffle bisquit.

 

[Poly Hive]

Several years ago, I was at a presentation by Heather Matilla. She and Gard Otis did a study on feeding pollen substitutes. When building colonies for the flow, she found that it was necessary only about one year in four. I feed pollen sub every spring, because I never know when it will be one of those four years, until it's too late to correct the situation.


http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1603/0022-0493-99.3.604

As ever know your locality.

PH

 

[domino]

As ever know your locality.

PH

I'm too busy to do a pollen survey of the 7 million meters of around my hives.

 

[Finman]

I'm too busy to do a pollen survey of the 7 million meters of around my hives.

7000 km is not too big job.

 

[madasafish]

I know my locality but have no idea what the long term weather will be. The Met Office forecast in the 2000s that UK summer would be hot and dry and winters would be warmer and wetter. Just in time for the coldest winters for 20 years in 2010-12 and wet summers in 2015 and 2016..

 

[domino]

I know my locality but have no idea what the long term weather will be. The Met Office forecast in the 2000s that UK summer would be hot and dry and winters would be warmer and wetter. Just in time for the coldest winters for 20 years in 2010-12 and wet summers in 2015 and 2016..

For me it is cheap and harmless, so I do it anyway.

 

[madasafish]

For me it is cheap and harmless, so I do it anyway.

+1 (especially the cheap and easy bit . You did mention easy no doubt? )

 

[linoleum bonypart]

All this talk of patties..... no one has the foggiest which is the best

 

[BMH]

I feed mine from 1st Feb onwards and accept there is a risk if we get a cold snap after this it could set them back a bit.

I generally see colonies on 5/6 frames of brood move onto 10-12 frames after 8 weeks of feeding.

It serves the purpose that I can split heavily early on and make up plenty of nucs.

If i didnt split i reckon every single hive would swarm without adequate management!

It also builds them up well for a move to the rape which I am considering this year for the first time.

 

[Erichalfbee]

All this talk of patties..... no one has the foggiest which is the best

Yes we do. Randy Oliver has an evaluation and Mann Lake’s Ultrabee comes out best as a sub. You can’t get irradiated pollen in the uk. Or can you?

 

[Finman]

All this talk of patties..... no one has the foggiest which is the best

You try to say that when I have done it 27 years, I do not have any foggy idea what I have done.


.

 

[domino]

I feed mine from 1st Feb onwards and accept there is a risk if we get a cold snap after this it could set them back a bit.

Do you feed them just pollen or syrup as well?

 

[BMH]

Do you feed them just pollen or syrup as well?

They get syrup in September. Fondant in December and pollen patties in February.

There tends to be both fondant and patties available until everything gets taken off at the spring flow.



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[linoleum bonypart]

I wasn't talking about you finny baby...we know ur a patty maker

 

[For want of a better word]

They get syrup in September. Fondant in December and pollen patties in February.

There tends to be both fondant and patties available until everything gets taken off at the spring flow.



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They must be so fat with all that excess I wonder if they can fly... or even need to go foraging!

Yeghes da