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From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 25 Nov 2020 08:17:35 -0500
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The folks who wrote this paper think Spirulina is an acceptable pollen replacement, even when grown "at home", so looks to me like a great way to vertically integrate and reduce some costs for beekeepers who can also farm.
Note the comparison to trapped and fresh-frozen pollen, which one would assume would be the gold standard.

I am always a little cautious when listening to people who talk very fast about "what the bees need", rattling off biochemical names and biochemistry terms as if we were all intimately familiar with the issue as applied to bees.  I find myself with persistent... questions... left unanswered, or hand-waved away by the pitchmen for the latest "bee diet", and so many of them in the past have been about as useful as sawdust.  The sole exception to date has been Dr. Gordy Wardell, who spent more time that he should have making up for my preference for sculling on the Charles River over reading more biochem back in school.  He crucially admitted openly that "particle size" and "grinding" was the most significant and difficult factor in making such concoctions, increasing my confidence level, as anyone looking at many pollen supplements with even a child's microscope would find a large fraction of particles far too large for a bee to be able to eat.  That's just physical properties, so zero comprehension of "biochem" is required to grock this basic failing of many supplements.

So, I am not sure I can buy the "introduction" section of this paper, or the basic underlying assumptions that (a) we know everything a bee diet should include, and (b) that we know what is "good for bees" at all with any greater precision than assuring "a variety" of food sources.  This area is very much still in flux, and subject to massive revision without notice, or subject to significant critique from people intoning the mantra "microbiome".

That said, they looked at some reasonable tangible metrics, and this stuff looks pretty damn good by those reasonable metrics.  Not "bet the farm on it" results, not "sell the pollen traps on Craigslist" results, but worth reading about and taking notes.
This is a very strong endorsement on the "Fischer Scale" (not to be confused with "Fisher's Exact Test", used for statistical significance in small sample-size datasets), as I tend to most often be an equal-opportunity skeptic and curmudgeon, and poke fun (without malice, but also without mercy) at everything. I can't remember seeing data this good on any of the bee feeds to date, but I don't read the nutrition boxes on my own food these days, either.


Ricigliano, V.A., Simone-Finstrom, M. "Nutritional and prebiotic efficacy of the microalga Arthrospira platensis (spirulina) in honey bees." Apidologie 51, 898–910 (2020). 

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-020-00770-5

(Full open access, no need to lock-pick a paywall this time...)

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-020-00770-5

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