At 03:03 PM 12/25/98 +0000, you wrote:
 
Hi Garth and Beekeeping Friends,
Merry Christmas to All!
 
>as it is practically untested (I have fed brewing yeast to my bees
>and they were there two weeks later) would be to go to the local
>brewery and get their spent yeast - find some way of heating it to
>80C for twenty minutes - which will kill it and then feed it directly
 
Sounds interesting but I would ask if you would do the same with pollen and
what value the pollen would have after "killing" all the yeast in it?
 
The best yeast I have ever tested and used by the tons for feeding bees was
a product made for forest products waste. It was sold here for many years
as a food flavor enhancement for spicy foods such as potato chips. The
trade name was Wheast and it was not so dead that I could not grown
tremendous colonies on plywood its mother. In fact it would make it very
dangerous to walk on one of my truck beds after several  seasons of bee
diet delivery use as you would fall through.<G>
 
This forest product, Wheast, was discontinued and the equipment was shipped
to SA.(South America not South Africa) Other products made from corn waste
products called Wheast are available but were no benefit over food grade
yeasts for making bee diets but may still be in use by some or many beekeepers.
 
As for my answer to the question on pollen the best pollen that I have ever
feed bees was naturally fermented in closed containers in a 80+ degree f.
room without the addition of any moisture. The resulting product would gag
a maggot, was very dark in color, and smelled like stale beer barf but boy
was it exciting to see what bees would do with it as far as rearing brood
when added about 5-50% to yeast with enough sugar syrup to make a pattie. I
am sure these diets would not be fit for human consumption and never have
compared insect diets to anything I would put in my own month as I am sure
some of the things bees will eat and do well on are not necessarily that
good for us anyway.<G>
 
Anyway I keep forgetting to tell all...so here is one secret of making
protein diets for bees all should be aware of and that is they should/can
be made up ahead of use and allowed to sit in a warm room 80 f which will
save the bees some time and even allow them to consume them at lower
temperatures then they normally would. These yeast based diets all are
better if allowed to work which is not new information as most should
realize by now that bees do not eat fresh pollen or even fresh stored
pollen but eat a fermented product made from pollen some call be bread.
They do this by adding moisture to the pollen at warm hive temperatures and
then sucking that moisture with the dissolved pollen up into their bodies.
You can tell which pollen cells are being consumed in the hive by looking
for this moisture layer on top of the stored pollen. Bees will even rob
pollen from a dead hive in this way if they are in need of it. (another
beekeeper factoid not reported)
 
In the beginning beekeepers knew nothing about yeasts or making diets
except from pollen. Beekeepers turned to those who did know about rearing
insects in the commercial insectories and picked up on yeast and Wheast
from them. I personally visited with insectories operators from California
to Florida to pick over their brains and they mined my own. At the time
these were the cream of the crop of entomologists in the US and all were
interested in honeybees, beekeepers, and our problems as they were Anti
Dusty and we were losing much of our wealth to pesticides. One thing I
learned and have said before was they all added TANG to their diets and did
not know why scientifically but said it was necessary. Maybe it had
something to do with the moon men at the time were using Tang I don't know
but for sure its something to think about. I did add a lot of other things
including Tang to my diets but gave up on them as all I could see is they
added to the cost and did not have benefits I could measure with my own
eyes. And then I am not sure if those moon walks were not all made on some
back lot of a movie studio in Hollywood anyway as I had been reared on them
as a kid when ever Saturday afternoon I went to the movies for a dime and
watched the Buck Rogers serials as he walked around on the moon or was it
mars, maybe both.
 
Anyway Happy Christmas to All,
including all who I have Offended!
 
the OLd Drone
Los Banos, California (target information left off because of current
events)
 
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