Allen wrote:
 
> How well does the yeast work for open feeding?
 
 
I found the bees were flying and gathering from an open bag of brewer's
yeast when I was mixing substitute last spring.  However, there is a
physical characteristic to all the powders that I think is important to
consider as a factor in open feeding.  It seems to me that the pollen pellet
that the bees are able to make from either brewers yeast, soyflour (full fat
or defatted, I have tried both), milk powder, or calf milk replacer, or
combinations are never anywhere approaching the size of a natural pollen
pellet.  Pollen is sticky, but I don't think this is the only factor.  The
full fat soyflour is also quite sticky but the pellets are still small
despite the fact that the bees hairs are covered with more dust particles
than they would get at flowers usually.  The fact that the pollen coating
has geometric irregularities and sometimes spikes and protrusions likely has
some effect.  The brewers yeast must have an extremely small particle size
(Andy referred to this particle size last year on his posts about DRINKING
pollen) and although I have never looked at it under a microscope I suspect
it is very smooth.  The dust is so fine that the beating of a bee's wings
puts it airborne quite readily.  I think that the particle size is not very
well adapted to open feeding alone.
 
I always used open feeding to get the bee's acclimated to the taste of
substitute.  I think the patties were consumed much better after a few
foragers had brought some in from outside.  But I had no natural pollen to
mix with it.
 
Like Allen, I also was quite influenced by Andy's posts last year about
soyflour and Mark Spagnolo's "Hawaiian delight" (just pollen, brewers yeast,
sugar and water) and as a result trapped quite a bit of pollen last year for
use this spring.  But I will still use SOME soyflour in my mix.  My
reasoning is that the pollen+extender has to be the SOLE protein source for
my bees in Prince Edward Island, who will be consuming it before any natural
pollen is available.  So it has to have a complete balance of all the amino
acids that are necessary for brood growth.  A single source, such as
brewer's yeast, is not likely to have every amino acid necessary.  I know
when one is formulating a stock ration that the usefulness of the ration to
the animal is limited by the level of the first essential amino acid that
the animal runs out of. So, when using soy protein for pigs, lysine and
methionine are added because they are very low and limiting.   Probably the
reason brewer's yeast works for Mark is that the deficient amino acids are
present to some level in the natural pollen that is mixed with it.  I think
a mix of several ingredients helps ensure a mix of amino acids.  And I think
the early formulators of bee protein diets, like Haydak, must have had this
in mind because they tried a variety of mixes with yeasts, flours, wheasts,
milk powder, dried blood, meatmeat, egg powder,...   But I will be
concentrating on the brewers yeast.
 
It would be nice to be able to offer various ingredients to the bees and see
what they like, but supposedly the bees are not terribly good judges of
nutrional value.  Which I guess I can believe, after seeing them gathering
sawdust and barn dust crud.
 
I enjoyed reading Garth's post about maltose in some powders, but although
it might increase palatability it would not affect the protein value.
 
Regards, Stan