>In my opinion, the particle size is not particularly important in patties.
 I could be proven wrong, but I doubt it.

Allen, do you have any information to back up that statement?  I've found
that when patties are made from materials with larger particle size, that
the bees simply lick the sugar off the particles, and then dispose (of at
least some) of them.

Be mandibles are not designed for chewing, and the only solid food that bees
evolved to eat was pollen grains.  My guess would be that particle size is
likely important, and I always rub any new ingredient between my fingers to
test for grittiness.

>Our philosophy in approaching academics and others regarding improving the
feed recipes of the time was that the work should be 'open source' and
financed by beekeepers, with the results of the work being freely
promulgated.

I am in total agreement with you, Allen.  I'm not sure how the ARS can use
taxpayer money to develop a product, and then to license it for production
without patenting it--which would place the formula in the public domain.
I'm truly surprised that no one has pursued freedom of information access
for some products developed on the taxpayer dime.

>
> >My personal opinion -- not confirmed by actual tests -- is that little has
> been accomplished in the past decade except to add cost to a basic formula
> that works and confuse beekeepers with hype.
>

When I research bee nutrition, I find little information that wasn't know by
the time varroa arrived, when the focus of research shifted to mites. The
work of Drs Elton Herbert, Jr and Hichiro Shimanuki still stand as the
definitive research on supplemental feeding.

Randy Oliver

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