Hi All
 
I have not as yet worked out an easy way to reply to individual
postings within Bee-l best of bee things without blocking and copying
and deleting till I burn out the key, so will reply here:
 
Why are beekeepers good people:
 
They have as their role models bees, who within one hive are very
co-operative and do things without direct benefit to themselves. EG a
worker lives for no reason other than to help it's mother reproduce.
(A bit like a nun going round the world and setting up missionaries
so other people have better lives and more kids)
 
Secondly bee Bread
 
Pollen is very inert with an inert layer on the outside. This is
yellow. Bee droppings are yellow. ie the pollen coat is probably not
digested by the bees.
 
Pollen germinates when it lands on a flower and sends out a pollen
tubule. This also can happen in the human nose (leading to hayfever).
When this happens the nutrients in the pollen are mobilised and
injected into the flower or your nose. If the bee germinates the
pollen it may extract the nutrients through the pore that opens in
the pollen tubule.
 
This would mean that bee bread would be a bit like malted barley used
in brewing. Yeasts cannot use barley starch so we germinate the seeds
so they get ready to start growing and produce enzymes that release
all the stored proteins and carbohydrates in the seed.
 
So, this would mean that bees may not be able to digest proteins very
much at all, but instead use the pollens natural enzymes to do the
job. This would make sense considering the huge variety in pollen
proteins and how difficult it would be to get the enzymes into the
particles. As a result bees would not be able to use ground up soya,
but would be able to use brewers yeast, as their antimicrobial
enzymes would digets the yeast releasing their nutrients?
 
This is all complete conjecture, based on the fact that I am just at
present studying the malting proccess and it seems similar to what I
have seen bees doing.
 
 
On the censorship thread:
 
If it offends one, your defences against what bug you and what
doesnt are not much good. Living in a higly offensive society (eg
South Africa where one has about twenty five different cultures all
with different ideas of what is offensive, learning to ignore is
best. )
 
Keep well
 
Garth
 
---
Garth Cambray       Kamdini Apiaries
15 Park Road        Apis melifera capensis
Grahamstown         800ml annual precipitation
6139
Eastern Cape
South Africa               Phone 27-0461-311663
 
3rd year Biochemistry/Microbiology    Rhodes University
In general, generalisations are bad.
Interests: Flii's and Bees.