----- Original Message ----- 
From: "allen"

> I have been thinking about this lately. The problem seems to be that every
> location and every season is unique,

The mantra is oft repeated here that 'all beekeeping is local'.  True, but
it is equally true that (successful) husbandry, of any sort, is the same
everywhere.  Get the nutrition right.  Sure there are other problems, but
get the nutrition right and half of them disappear, or, are, at least
reduced.

> There is less interest in the nutritional value of each specific pollen
> and the variation in nutritional values within each, partly because
> applying much of that knowledge is not easy or simple.

With respect it seems simple to me.  Avoid locations with poor or deficient
pollens (toxic), seek out those with good pollens.  On this side of the
pond, eastern side of the country, our two most consistent honey trees are
pollen deficient.  So it is necessary to choose sites that have a quality
pollen source from other flora.  Particularly as these two flower at the
beginning of the season, and hopefully there will be other flows later.  The
research has been done, we now can look up the protein quality of virtually
any plant that is likely to be significant.
>
> Pollens are unpredictable in timing

That's interesting.  I would have thought with your defined seasons they
would have been pretty regular.


> Pollens also do vary considerably, even for one type of plant, due to
> variations in genotype and phenotype and region, climate, soil, weather,
> etc.

Yes one would expect some variation, but our experience is that the quality
of a specific pollen does not vary all that much.


> Some pollen work has been done.  Justin Schmidt, among others, did some
> research on pollens, http://tinyurl.com/m5vgmj but the problem has been in
> applying that knowledge.

He appears to have told us what we already knew.  Low protein means short
life.  Or did I miss something?

> As a result, the USDA has again started to emphasize nutritional
> supplements because they apply in almost every situation and a re an easy
> workaround for most situations.

I am a great believer in feeding an artificial diet.  Or at least I would be
if we had a good one ;-).  Some time ago I convinced our research mob that
such a diet was needed.  They agreed but couldn't find a competent
nutritionist to do the work, so we still wait.
>
> The problem is that the work being done with public money has been kept
> secret and proprietary.

Strange, I would have thought that it would be in the public domain.  Ours
is.

Geoff Manning

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