I only wish April would allow the bees to gather all that food from Morse's
abundant food sources. More often than not, it seems, they are held back by
cold rainy weather and run out of pollen. Brood rearing stops real fast just
when you don't want it to. They do love that Bee-Pro.    Mike
 
Aaron Morris wrote:
 
> To feed or not to feed, and what to feed - that is the question.  As far
> as what to feed, I trap pollen in the summer to feed in the late winter/
> early spring, mixed with BeePro (from Mann Lake) and 1:1 sugar syrup.
> The more pollen the better - I shoot for about 25:75 pollen to BeePro.
> Obviously I don't do this on a large scale.  I don't know the formula
> for BeePro but s'pect it's a soy/yeast mixture based on sight and smell.
>
> As far as "when" goes, as in all beekeeping issues the answer is,
> "Depends on where you are".  In the upstate New York areas, Roger Morse
> says feeding is not necessary.  Rationale being that the ideal time for
> feeding coincides with the time that abundant food is (usually) readily
> available to foargers and feeding is an unnecessary expense.  In the
> years that I have fed my bees to stimulate early build up I got plenty
> of swarms.  Last year I did early stimulative feeding and made ample
> splits to thwart the swarms.
>
> So one must ask, "What is the goal of feeding?".  For Allen it's puttin'
> on the fall fat for over wintering.  I had never considered this, to me
> (and in most texts) the goal was always early spring build up.  In these
> parts early spring is mid to late winter so as Dr. Morse states, spring
> feeding isn't really necessary.  The best analysis of stimulative spring
> feeding I have found is in _Swarming:_Its_Control_and_Prevention_ by
> L.E. Snelgrove.  In that book he maps bee development to an area's honey
> flow calendar to determine the 'ideal' time for stimulative spring
> feeding.  If the goal is to maximize honey production, then you want to
> stimulate brood rearing in time to allow the addition brood to become
> foragers to coincide with the peak honey flow, or approximately 6 to 8
> weeks prior to the peak flow in your area.  It's all in the timing!
> In these parts that period is about April 1, which is also the start
> of peak spring blossom awakening.  Snelgrove bears out Morse!  So my
> knowledge and experience for these parts (unless increase is your goal)
> is feeding is not necessary.  Your results may vary.
>
> Guess this is a long winded way to recommend reading Snelgrove.
>
> Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee!