>But for the rest of us, when water falls from the sky, bees stay home, and > several days of rain in a row can leave the bees critically short of fresh > high-protein pollen for brood. So the benefit to feeding pollen is "cheap > insurance" when weather is variable This would be typical during a normal California winter/spring, even during full almond bloom. A few days of rain, and all beebread is consumed. A few more days, and the nurses cut back on jelly production. Many of us feed pollen sub at these times as insurance, although I'd hardly call it "cheap." And can be a waste of money if the bees simply harvest the sugar from patties, and kick the expensive part out of the door. > > >Other than that, I agree that the bees always prefer real nectar and > pollen > over the fake stuff, a good reason to invest in pollen traps. > We found that some of the most attractive subs were at times consumed on par with the patties of natural pollen, although overall, natural pollen was typically consumed at the greatest rate. Charlie, re contamination of hive products with pollen sub. We occasionally found a flake of pollen sub in the honey stored immediately around the brood. It appeared as though it fell off a bee's mandibles, rather than being intentionally placed there. -- Randy Oliver Grass Valley, CA www.ScientificBeekeeping.com *********************************************** 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