"This is not the experience of prof. Haydak. See http://www.fiitea.org/foundation/files/1967/M.%20HAYDAC.pdf (Table 4)."

My reading of this rather old paper is that table 2 shows bee bread in comb beats every other thing tested hands down.  That includes beating fresh dried pollen by a large margin.  The best home made subs roughly matched fresh dried pollen and many the author tested gave what can only be described as miserable performance compared to bee bread or fresh dried pollen.  Two year old dried pollen was inferior to fresh pollen.  Without question the home made subs were sure better than nothing in a colony deprived of all external pollen and stored pollen.  That does not make them very effective foods.  Based on tests Randy Oliver has published I doubt if any of the listed home made subs would compare to the best commercial subs available today.  And, based on Randy's tests  the best commercial sub he tested was still not as good as natural pollen past the second round of brood so today's commercial subs still lack some important ingredient.

In the face of all the evidence I still feel it is fair to say home brewed subs are very likely false economy when you can expect the better commercial subs to beat anything you make yourself by a big margin.

Dick

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html