> Looking for an old-fashioned pollen supplement recipe for spring feeding.
> Nothing elaborate, just a simple old-fashioned recipe that works. I never
> fed before, not sure what works.
I have played with various supplements over the years (including a fish meal
formula a vet friend back in the 70's thought would be the ideal but which
chased the bees out of the hives) and settled on the formula described under
the topic 'Protein Nutrition' at
http://honeybeeworld.com/diary/menus/topics.htm. It is a pretty basic,
old-fashioned formula, and sticks to the KISS formula. It has only four
ingredients, and the two that are not household items can be sourced fairly
easily through bee supply houses.
In feeding, the more complex the formula, the more ways there are to go
wrong. Even with this recipe, some people buy animal feed brewers yeast
locally, assuming all brewers yeasts are the same. Without going into the
details, which are in the archives, they are not, and some may be toxic.
The same applies to the soy. 'Sugar' means refined white sugar, but some
creative people manage to find a sugar that is toxic to bees and use it
because "it has more stuff in it and that has to be good -- right?" Wrong.
Even the water can carry toxins, although the amount of water in the formula
is not likely to cause a problem unless the water is really bad.
The freshness of the ingredients is very important. A study a while back
demonstrated that stale ingredients can result in feed that does no good,
and another showed actual harm. Up to a year is probably OK for storage, in
cool, dry conditions, but, as with most food, the fresher, the better.
So, the long and the short, IMO, is keep it simple, get everything fresh,
and from bee supply sources -- not the local feed store unless you really
want to research the sources, and to take a chance.
Personally, I made patties in our shop for years, both paying wages, then
piecework, then farmed the job out, and finally found Global (
www.globalpatties.com ). They made our patties better than we made them
ourselves and for less money, and turned it into a business with facilities
in both Canada and the US, and outlets around both countries. Because
Global uses many truckloads of each product, their ingredients are always as
fresh as possible.
Global makes custom formulae to order as well as their own standard patties,
and have made patties with all the various commercial, 'secret' formulas --
BeePro, FeedBee, MegaBee, etc.. They have also made many custom batches for
various beekeepers with whatever special ingredients people want. The
take-home message, however, is that the best selling product is the
yeast/soy/sugar/water formula described on the web pages (above), although
many beekeepers like to get their patties with a small amount of added
irradiated natural bee pollen to increase consumption rates.
In short, there may be better formulae out there, bit the detailed one on my
site works well everywhere as long as the bees have some natural pollen,
and, very importantly, never seems to do any harm. The ingredients are well
known and well accepted as safe for people and animals. As far as results
per dollar spent I doubt it can be beat. There are other, usually
proprietary, recipes that have been shown to do marginally better is some
circumstances, but they are more expensive, more complex, and may include
secret ingredients.
Personally I have seen nothing to convince me that anything gives more bang
for the buck with less risk. There are some home-brew efforts which show
promise, but IMO do not justify the extra cost and effort, and which also
may have spoilage problems. Quite often these efforts are based on theory
and ideas people get, not time-proven results.
For small amounts, you can make your own quite easily. The only trick is to
find and buy the right ingredients and to be sure they are fresh. Otherwise
there is the risk of wasting time and money or doing damage to the bees.
As for timing, my rule of thumb is to delay the start of supplement feeding
until about one brood cycle before a reliable source of pollen is due, then
feed heavily and continuously until I have supers on and it gets to be a
nuisance. That is around the first day of summer, but I am thinking that
some beekeepers -- especially those on pollination -- should go longer. My
bees, regardless of what some say, will eat the patties any time of year
that they are active, and I *know* that spring patty feeding has improved my
bee health and wintering success. Continuous feeding all spring is
essential IMO, since there are days and weeks when the bees are confined,
and some hives also don't forage as well as others.
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