Hi All
 
On the bee feed topic - I find this really interesting.
 
If we consider a pollen grain it is a hard husk that is usually
yellow with a small haploid plant inside and some energy stores to
help this little plant germinate and grow it's pollen tupe down the
anther into the ovary of the female plant and deliver a sperm cell or
two to it.
 
The husk or endosperm or whatever it's name is is undigested by bees
- those little yellow splats that land on your car, window,
honeybottles etc and are a pain to remove are proof of that. But bees
get nutrition out of the pollen somehow. My theory - they wet the
pollen and it germinates. Pollen will not germinate unless it is
stimulated by certain sugars and other things usually only found on
flower tips. Do bees gather such sugars??? I am sure. So if they spit
on the pollen it should germinate.(Has anybody ever noticed how
pollen from a comb is sweeter than pollen from the landing board??)
The pollen tube will grow out and give a small thin film of
nutrients. If bees eat this they should be able to digest the now
released proteins and nucleic acids in the germinating pollen
granule. (Andy mentioned a few months back about the film of water
being important.) (A bit like malting the pollen!!)
 
Yeast would in theory be a problem for bees to digest as it is quite
tough, but it has a cell wall - fungi and plants have a similar cell
wall, so if a bee can digest a pollen tube it can theoretical digest
a yeast cell. Yeast cells are also a biological toolbox full of fancy
enzymes that can probably hydrolyse all sorts of things out of fancy
chemicals like soy proteins and carbohydrates. It also has quite a
high DNA/ RNA content which I would think would be useful for a queen
trying to produce 2000-3000 eggs a day.
 
Hope this is not too far of the mark!
 
Keep well
 
Garth
 
---
Garth Cambray       Camdini Apiaries
15 Park Road        Apis melifera capensis
Grahamstown         800mm annual precipitation
6139
Eastern Cape
South Africa               Phone 27-0461-311663
 
On holiday for a few months     Rhodes University
Which means: working with bees 15 hours a day!
Interests: Fliis and bees
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post in no way
reflect those of Rhodes University.