>seems to me they wouldn't store it in supers,  and separating syrup and
mega bee seems unlikely.

Charlie, bees have no innate behavior to move pollen supp from the patty to
the combs.  I've tested by using fluorescent tracers in pollen patties (as
well as dry-fed pollen subs).  Zero patty gets stored in the combs or fed
directly to larvae.  Dry fed sub, on the other hand, is incorporated into
beebread.

As far as feeding during a natural pollen flow, I'll be posting the results
of my recently completed pollen sub feeding trial to my website soon.  In
this trial, there was no apparent benefit to feeding during strong natural
pollen flow.

I'm currently running another trial as a replicate during a different
natural pollen flow to see if I obtain the same results.  So far, I have
two observations of interest:

1.  Despite the pollen sub patties containing 50% sugar, the bees consume
the 100% sugar sham patties far more rapidly than the sub patties.  This
despite there being a good nectar flow on concurrently.

2.  Unlike patty consumption during pollen dearth, when little patty
residue is seen on the landing board, during the natural pollen flow I
observe plenty of patty residue in front of some hives.  This suggests to
me that the bees are chewing the patties to remove the sugar, and
discarding some of the rest.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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