Hello Everyone,

>What recipie have you found to be the most acceptable to the bees?

For patties I have found that an equal volumes of Bee Pro, brewers yeast
and sugar with about 10% natural pollen and a tablespoon of vitamin C per
5 gallons of mix works well. For the my few hives the following amounts
work well:

2 cups pollen
8 cups hot water - mix the water and pollen to breakup the pollen pellets

1 tbls vitamin C - stir into the solution

7 cups sugar
2 cups honey
7 cups brewers yeast
7 cups Bee Pro

Add enough additional water and mix to make a cake mix like mixture. Let
set overnight and then stir and place on wax paper. The mixture should be
as wet as possible without freely flowing. Squish to the right height and
place in a 5 gallon bucket.

Any extra can be kept in the freezer and thawed when needed.

The bees will consume this mixture if placed immediately above the
broodnest even when abundant natural pollen is available. I think the key
factors are the sugar and moisture content. If it dries out, the bees
will stop working it.

I don't claim this is the optimum mixture. I do know that the bees will
reject the Bee Pro and syrup patty when natural pollen is available. They
will work longer on the Bee Pro - brewers yeast syrup patty. A little
honey, pollen and vit C seems to make the difference. If you try it let
me know how it works for you.
Maybe I've just got a poor natural pollen location. :>)

Dennis Murrell
Eye of toad, wing of bat.....maybe that will make bees fat.