Ron & Eefje <[log in to unmask]> wrote:...... one of the bees naturally required food sources is suddenly taken from them and this must have an impact on their well-being. ...... and also depriving the bees the inflow of their pollen may well be their neck shot! 

Ron van Mierlo


Ron,
    I have a pollen excluder but as of yet have not used it.  I'm a little scared to because this is an entirely new area of beekeeping for me.  I want to because through my own personal research it seems that pollen extender patties work a lot better when about 1/2 of the patty is made up of natural pollen.
    Using a pollen trap on a hive.  From what I can gather from what I have read, the procedure is to trap pollen for a day or two and then let the bees bypass the trap for a couple of days.  You keep alternating the trapping days and the free pass days so that the colony is not seriously deprived from the ingathering of pollen.
     Now, being as I have not done this to date, I could be seriously wrong in my conclusions stated above.  But, we'll see because I do want to trap pollen so as to assist in my endeavor to make splits.

Mike in LA

       
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