At 08:57 AM 1/6/98 -0600, Allen Dick wrote:
 
Hi Allen and All!
 
>In the past I've claimed that feeding substitute just gives a short burst
>of buildup then a crash -- resulting in no benefit, but this last year, we
 
Yes, in fact feeding can cause a early dramatic reduction of the total populations in the bee hive.
Once feeding is started it must continue until the bees can bring in enough natural pollen to maintain the brood. Feeding protein to bees is labor and material sensitive and once a good queen gets going the hive can consume two or more pounds per week. To work they must never be allowed to run out of food. A good gage of any diet and feeding program is the rearing of drones. When all things are right the bees will rear drones and this can be done without the benefit of flight if the diet is right. The down side is that this extra activity will increase the number of queens that fail, and of course any that can not be replaced for what ever reason will result in a lost hive.
 
>Wheast(r) was a bee feed product that caused no controversy whatsoever to
>my ken. Every beekeeper agreed it was good stuff (hehehe...  maybe Andy
>can be the first to disagree)  but years ago it was discontinued.
 
I have never found anything better the Wheast, including bee collected pollen. The problem here is the Wheast that did the best was a by-product of the forest industry and was made by one company that closed or moved it Wheast making activities off shore. Wheast is still available and is made from corn waste products. I have no idea if it is as good for bee diets as the old plywood waste wheast. I can tell you from an experience I had with the old stuff that it is active, alive, as I had colonies start on the plywood floor of the truck that I used to take the diet out to the bee yards and they fed on the wood until nothing was left and the plywood had to be replaced.<G>
 
DADANT'S at Fresno is the best first source of information for the availability of the products needed to make one's own bee diets. They also will be happy to sell you the soy diets ready to feed if that what beekeepers want.<G>
 
I will try to post the latest, greatest, formulas in use by the commercial beekeepers here in the near future.
 
ttul, the OLd Drone
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