>if they can't get fresh, the preserved pollen is just as good -- but not
better.

Pollen, as with virtually every other food, degrades nutritionally over
time.  In the Fig. 1 of our follow up paper, we found that in 3 out of 4
assessments, beebread even slightly aged underperformed that which was more
fresh.  We need to replicate these findings, but they do not support the
claim that preserved pollen is "just as good."

And yes, a few recent studies found that the alcohol in nectar and freshly
fermented beebread is attractive to bees.

I had the opportunity this week to spend time with Kirk Anderson and some
of his collaborators.  They are making great strides in furthering our
understanding of the complexities of the bee microbiome, and Kirk is
adamant that we have a long way to go before we can claim to fully
understand it.

We also discussed how to investigate to what extent bees derive further
nutrition from the bacterial fermentation of the pollen exines in their
hindgut prior to defecation.


-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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