>Is bee malnutrition primarily a concern of the large commercial beekeepers
>who, due to the size of their operations, can't offer their hives ample
>forage at certain times of the year?  Should the smaller guys be as
>concerned or not?

In my area we normally have plenty of pollen for the bees. We only fed in
times of no fresh pollen.

 A strange thing has happened and I have no explanation for it.

it used to be that the bees would only take a pollen patty when fresh pollen
was not available For the last few years this has changed. Plenty of fresh
pollen coming in now but the bees today moved right on to the patties I put
on today and maybe 1 out of 20 hives had any patty at all left from last
week.

 Dave Hackenberg said the bees on fall crops will take patties and stop
foraging for fresh pollen. Dave said we could use the fact to help prevent
winter losses from contaminated pollen ( neonicotinoids ?)
I told Dave my bees had always ignored patties in fall when fresh was
available.

I had only fed a fall pollen patty in Missouri in the last year of a two
year drought ( droughts in Missouri have always been two year since I
started keeping bees in Missouri). I have quite a bit of respect for Dave's
beekeeping skills so I tried and found bees in fall (or spring) will *now*
take patties when fresh is available. I tried four different formulas that
fall to see if it was a formula thing but it was not.

Not sure why now when the bees always seemed to ignore the pollen patties as
soon as fresh became available. In fact I always picked up and stored in a
freezer to prevent waste. Not now.

Any ideas why the bees seem to have changed their habits?

My tests over the last 3 years show me I can actually get the bees to slow
pollen foraging (if not almost stop) when given patties . Feeding syrup at
the same time seems to help keep the bees home.

bob

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